Tender, moist lemon coffee cake loaded with blueberries crowned with a crunchy, sweet crumb topping and drizzled with a tart lemon glaze. A fun way to change up blueberry muffins. It makes a family-favorite breakfast or brunch recipe.
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❤️ Why You’ll Love this Recipe: This simple but impressive coffee cake has the perfect balance of moist, cakey texture and sweet crumb topping. It’s a great make-ahead treat for brunch, breakfast, or an afternoon pick-me-up.
Update: This is one of the most popular recipes on the blog! So I’ve updated the post with new tips and a video to make it even easier for you to enjoy this lemon blueberry coffee cake ASAP.
How to Make Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake
I first made this recipe as an alternative to my streusel blueberry muffins which everyone loves. It’s a fun twist that’s easy to transport if you’re bringing a baked treat for a crowd. To boost the flavor of this coffee cake, I added lemon zest to my traditional blueberry muffin recipe.
And since coffee cake is always better with a crumb topping, I had to add streusel. For the cherry on top, a sweet-tart lemon glaze. The glaze sits on top and drips down the sides for a beautiful presentation
Lemon Glaze for Coffee Cake
Make a quick and easy lemon glaze with just two ingredients: powdered sugar and lemon juice. Whisk until you have a smooth, pourable texture. When the cake is cooled, you can drizzle the glaze on with a spoon if you like. However, I prefer to use a quart-sized Ziploc bag.
Put the bag in a tall drinking glass or mug and fold the edges over the top of the mug to make a wide opening. Then fill the bag with your glaze. Seal up the bag and snip off a bit of one corner with scissors. Then simply drizzle the glaze over the top of the coffee cake.
If you want to get drips down the side of the cake, put a little puddle of glaze along the edge of the loaf. It will make a pretty little drip down the sides. If your glaze doesn’t drip nicely, you may need to thin it out a bit more.
Storage
You can store leftover coffee cake wrapped tightly in plastic wrap at room temperature for up to four days. For longer storage, keep the wrapped cake in the freezer for up to three months. You can defrost the cake overnight at room temperature to serve.
If your family loves blueberry muffins as much as my family does, they’ll love this coffee cake too. It takes blueberries to a whole new level.
More Breakfast Baking Recipes
If you love this lemon blueberry coffee cake, try these other tasty breakfast and brunch recipes next:
- Cinnamon Creme Coffee Cake is my riff on the beloved cake from Corner Bakery.
- Cinnamon Roll Coffee Cake is a beautiful coiled cake with cinnamon spice and classic glaze.
- Pumpkin Sour Cream Coffee Cake has a sweet glaze and a dense, pumpkin flavor.
- Banana Bread Coffee Cake, Crazy for Crust
- Banana Streusel Coffee Cake with Maple Glaze, Shugary Sweets
- Marionberry Cherry Crumb Cake, filled with tart marionberries and dried cherries crowned with a sweet, crumbly topping and glaze.
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Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake
Ingredients
Crumb Topping
- ½ cup granulated sugar 99 grams
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour 35 grams
- 3 tablespoons butter melted
Cake Batter
- 2 cups all purpose flour 284 grams
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened, 1 stick
- 1 cup granulated sugar 198 grams
- 2 eggs large
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup whole milk 4 ounces
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 2 cups blueberries fresh or frozen
Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar 60 grams
- 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350º F. Spray a 9-inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray with flour.
- Prepare crumb topping by mixing the sugar, flour, and butter together in a small bowl well with a fork and set aside. The mixture should be sandy and then start to form small clumps.
- In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and milk. Mix in lemon zest. Add flour mixture and mix just until combine. Stir in blueberries.
- Spread batter evenly into prepared pan. Sprinkle with crumb topping.
- Bake at 350º for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. The center should be 210 degrees F. with an instant read thermometer.
- Whisk together powdered sugar and lemon juice to create a thin glaze.
- Cool the cake 10 minutes in the pan, then run a knife around the edge and remove ring. Drizzle icing on cake. Cool completely before serving. (Unless you're like us and would rather eat it hot even though the cake doesn't cut as well.)
Candy Matsukado
This cake was a huge hit – really yummy! However, you may want to add a note about using frozen blueberries (which I did), because as soon as I added them to the batter, it pretty much froze. Hard to finish mixing the blueberries in, and hard to get out of the bowl and into the pan. Also, because the batter was so cold, a 45 minute bake time was out the window – at the 45 minute mark, the center of the cake was still liquid! It ended up taking 70 minutes to bake, but it was fabulous (and had a big dome!)
Lisa Turk
Same here for the frozen blueberries. The batter seizes up. I’ve used fresh blueberries and thawed/drained from frozen blueberries, also in the past for this recipe. Fresh are best, then thawed from frozen (but don’t stir too much lest you get blue-purple swirls, not a huge deal for me), and frozen. Reserve 1 tablespoon of flour from the main measure and toss it with whatever version of blueberries you use, so they don’t sink to the bottom of the cake. I’ve also used a combo of blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries to total the two cups of berries in the recipe. Beautiful cake every time!
Jeannie
This looks delicious but How do I find the video for this recipe? Right under “My latest videos” is just a continuous running add. Help!
C
I have made this recipe so many times and absolutely love it!!! If you want more lemony flavor you can add a dash of real lemon juice from a fresh lemon, lemon extract McCormick, or juice from a plastic lemon to the wet ingredients, and Yes it will curdle the milk but doesn’t change the texture what so ever.
But be carful not to over do it.
Lisa B.
This is a really delicious and beautiful recipe – well worth the effort to make it carefully and accurately, and well worth the calories! It will become a favorite in our family! I only have one small request – please change the “Prep time” to reflect a more accurate estimate. I’m a very experienced cook, and there is no way that this recipe can be prepped and ready for the oven in 10 minutes, especially when one considers the variety of ingredients and steps involved.
Melissa G
I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe. It really is a fantastic one! And thanks for the note about the recipe timing – it has been updated!
Jen Moore
This cake turned out fabulously. Loved it.
Melissa G
So glad you liked it!
Mary
I made this cake, for the first time & brought it to my ladies church meeting. It was delicious, everyone loved it!
I will try pumpkin cake recipes next..
Thank you for your recipes!
Lisa
Can I use lemon extract or dried lemon peel instead of the lemon zest? Also, can I use concentrated lemon juice instead of fresh, squeezed lemon juice? I don’t have any lemons on hand right now, but I do have the blueberries.
Melissa G
Hi, Lisa, I always recommend trying something at least once so I say go ahead! I think the dried lemon peel can be subbed for the lemon zest as long as it’s finely minced or even coarsely ground. The lemon juice is going to give a different lemon flavor using concentrated instead of fresh but that doesn’t mean you won’t like the final result!
Andi
Outstanding! This has become a family favorite – even though I make it both gluten and dairy free! Never lasts long, freezes beautifully and is so yummy. Just the right amount of lemon. I use coconut milk in place of milk and either shortening or dairy free butter in place of the butter. Thanks so much!
Makani
I’m like 3 years late trying this recipe I just now found . Anyway, this is really delicious and I followed it to a T.
Looks really beautiful and it taste sinful!
Thank you for sharing it. I know this will be passed down to mine for years to come.
Melissa G
So glad you tried it and enjoyed it!
Cindy Murray
Question about the weights – As bread baker, I weigh all of my ingredients. I am curious about the type of flour you use that it would weigh 142 grams per cup. I use both King Arthur and Ceresota AP flour and the usual weight is between 120-125 grams per cup.
Therefore, using my flour, it’s about an extra 1/2 cup for your weight.
Melissa Griffiths
I think that’s the issue with doing cups to weights, if we just did weight we could standardize everything (I would love that) but because one baker is measuring out a cup and trying to convert it to a weight, it leaves some fluctuation in there.
Jennifer
I made this and it was great. Everyone loved it. Only change was used 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1 tsp lemon extract. The crumb topping was a little loose for me. Next time I’ll probably use more flour and not melt the butter and maybe brown sugar, but there will be a next time! I don’t need to ever find another recipe for this great cake.
Lorri Kinart
This is the best coffee cake I’ve ever made. It was very easy to make and so delicious. This will be my go to recipe for my family and to give for a gift.
Melissa G
So glad your family loved it, Lorri! I agree that it makes a lovely gift 🙂
Rachel
This is really good. My first time making this recipe. The only change I made was with the crumble topping. It said melted butter, however when I make crumble toppings I cut in cold butter, so I did that and I also added a little brown sugar and lemon juice to the crumble topping. It was great!
Pamela Layne
I have made this several times and have always gotten rave reviews. The first time was for my son’s next day brunch after his wedding, it was a bit hit. I will make it now when the family gets together be it Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother’s Day or some other event. It also keeps well!
Orrell Carol
This is now my favorite recipes of all time. Delicious flavor, wonderful texture and combination of ingredients. Great for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dessert. Very addictive!
Melissa Griffiths
So glad you liked them Orrell!!
Tres
I have made this several times both as a cake and as muffins, everybody goes crazy for it!
Alina
Can you freeze this cake after its baked?
Melissa Griffiths
Yes it freezes very nicely.
Kimberly
Lovely cake! I made it as written and it is delicious. I really appreciate the weight measurements for the ingredients and the internal temperature for doneness. Maybe since my blueberries were frozen, it took extra time to bake, but came out fantastically because I relied on the internal temperature. If I’d just gone by the time or my intuition it would have been underbaked in the center. So that was a great help!
Barbara Campbell
A question… can this be baked in a 13×9 pan?
Dee
Wow, I wish I could rate this 10 Stars because it has to be one of the best coffee cakes I’ve ever made. I made this coffee cake with fresh blueberries I picked yesterday! Absolutely delicious and very moist! Thanks for the recipe, and thanks for adding the 210 degree instant thermometer reading! That was a tremendous help.