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This Blueberry Lemon Yogurt Cake is an easy quick bread made with Greek yogurt and juicy blueberries, fresh or frozen, and it’s ready in under an hour.
When a regular Lemon Loaf Cake just isn’t enough for your spring tastes, add blueberries. It’s simple to make and delicious to eat (or share at a work potluck, or give to a neighbor or new mom friend).
The Greek yogurt makes it extra moist without making it heavy, and it doubles as brunch or dessert. There really isn’t any good reason not to make this!
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Ingredient notes
- Baking powder: Instead of yeast, quick breads such as loaf breads, muffins, biscuits, and scones use chemical leavening agents, in this case baking powder (baking soda is another example).
- Blueberries: You can use either fresh or frozen blueberries in this recipe. If using frozen blueberries, leave them frozen right up until the moment you are going to stir them in. Then, fold them in with as few strokes as possible. If you do see some residual purple streaks in the batter, they likely won’t bake up that way. In my experience, the cake looks the same as one made with fresh blueberries.
Step-by-step instructions
- Move an oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and coat with nonstick cooking spray. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, yogurt, eggs, zest, and vanilla.
- Add the flour ingredients in 3 batches, whisking to incorporate after each addition. Fold in oil and stir carefully until uniformly combined. Fold in the blueberries until just incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 1 hour until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
- Using a sharp knife, slice around the inside of the loaf pan to loosen the cake and flip out onto a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Cool the cake completely.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes 1 loaf cake, enough for 8 slices (or more or less depending on how you slice it).
- Storage: Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days.
- Freezer: Wrap tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap, label, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
- Made with boxed cake mix: This Lemon Blueberry Cake is a delicious version made in a bundt pan. Cut thick slices for breakfast, bake sales, and snacks.
Recipe FAQs
Culinary wisdom suggests you should toss the blueberries in some flour before mixing into the batter. I usually forget about this until it’s too late, but it’s a great idea if you’re worried about that! The blueberries in my photos were not tossed in flour, so you can decide for yourself how long I should kick myself about it.
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Blueberry Lemon Yogurt Cake
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder (see note 1)
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 4 eggs
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 6 ounces fresh blueberries or 1 cup frozen (see note 2)
Instructions
- Move an oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and coat with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, yogurt, eggs, zest, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, whisking to incorporate after each addition. Fold in oil and stir carefully until uniformly combined. Fold in the blueberries and stir until just incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
- Using a sharp knife, slice around the inside of the loaf pan to loosen the cake and flip out onto a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Cool the cake completely.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Baking powder: Instead of yeast, quick breads such as loaf breads, muffins, biscuits, and scones use chemical leavening agents, in this case baking powder (baking soda is another example).
- Blueberries: You can use either fresh or frozen blueberries in this recipe. If using frozen blueberries, leave them frozen right up until the moment you are going to stir them in. Then, fold them in with as few strokes as possible. If you do see some residual purple streaks in the batter, they likely won’t bake up that way. In my experience, the cake looks the same as one made with fresh blueberries.
- Yield: This recipe makes 1 loaf cake, enough for 8 slices (or more or less depending on how you slice it).
- Storage: Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days.
- Freezer: Wrap tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap, label, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
I would like to make these with the kids I watch for Mother’s Day gifts and would like to make them in mini bread pans. Have you ever made them in mini bread pans and if so how long did you bake them?
Hi Karen! I haven’t tried making these in mini bread pans but I found some information on the Betty Crocker website (a comparable recipe). Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and then bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Also, use about 1/2 cup of batter per mini bread pan. Cool 5 minutes before loosening in the pan and turning out on to a cooling rack to cool completely. I hope that helps! You can also try checking with a toothpick at 25 minutes or so, just in case. http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/mini-banana-breads/87bf7bb8-fe10-40d8-b2bc-585e779270bc Good luck!
The recipe was great! I just made them and they are so yummy! I made them into muffin tins since I don’t have a loaf pan and I noticed that they deflated once I pulled them out of the oven, is this normal when baking with blueberries? (This is my first time baking with blue berries) Thanks!
Hi Yanet, do you think it was a significant deflation or just a minor one? If it’s significant, sometimes that is caused by them being underdone (but you said they tasted good so they probably weren’t under done). And if they rose, the leavening agents were probably fine. One thing is, the muffin pans might have been overfilled. Sometimes when that happens, there isn’t enough structure above the pan to hold the muffins as high as they were when they were in the oven. To prevent that, the recipe might have be reformulated (cut down slightly?) to work perfectly as muffins. One other thing is, if you greased your muffin tin with cooking spray, you’d have to be very careful not to get any cooking spray on the top of the muffin pan. Sometimes when that happens, the batter spreads a little. (I should also add I am not a pastry chef and I only bake for fun and these are just some guesses!). I’m glad you at least enjoyed them though!
This cake looks so moist and delicious! Blueberry and lemon is definitely one of my favorite flavor combos! Hope to make a similar loaf soon 🙂
I made this a couple days ago and it was delicious! If I have leftovers should I keep it in the fridge or could I leave it at room temp? Also have you tried with whole wheat flour?
Hi Jorie, that is an excellent question about the leftovers. I personally have always kept it at room temperature, not in the refrigerator. I think if you will have it around for more than 4 days, maybe stick it in the fridge just to be safe? I don’t have a proper food science background so I’m just making suggestions here. I have not tried the cake with whole wheat flour, although I do have a cake on my blog that is an Olive Oil Lemon cake (not yogurt, it’s vegan) which uses whole wheat pastry flour and it’s really good. I doubt it would be an exact swap out though… I have no idea without testing it. Thank you so much for trying the recipe and I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I made this yesterday! I just sprayed a metal bread pan, instead of using parchment paper, and used 1/2tsp of lemon extract instead of the 2 tsps of lemon zest. Turned out delicious!
Thank you so much for this info, Laura! I will definitely update my recipe to include this info. Lemon extract is WAY more convenient than zesting a lemon. I feel like parchment paper is unnecessary but I’m always so paranoid… LOL. Thanks for your comment!!
I love the lemon blueberry bread but I could not find the nutritional facts is there any way you can put them in your recipes thank you
Hi Babs, glad you liked the recipe! I am so sorry but I do not provide nutrition facts on my recipes. There are a lot of online calculators that can generate this information though, so I hope you can find one that works for you!
Im baking this tomorrow and really excited to start it! Is it okay if i bake it in a 9inch round cake tin or maybe a square cake tin instead of the loaf pan? Thank you for your help, this looks gorgeous!
Hi Claudia! I would try the square cake pan over the 9-inch cake pan. It definitely fills the loaf pan and I feel like a can make might not be big enough! I am not exactly sure how this will effect the cooking time either, so I’d check it early. Halfway through, even. I will definitely plan on making this in a square pan at some point so I can update the recipe! 🙂 Thanks for your comment.
Made this today and loved it! I used lemon yogurt instead of plain. I also made the glaze from your other recipe.
Hi Edna! I am so glad you loved it. I will definitely have to try it with lemon yogurt. I assume it was not greek yogurt, but either way, it’s probably better than using plain! That lemon glaze is pretty fantastic. I thought about putting it on this cake too, but I didn’t want it to be overly fussy. But I should definitely try it too. I’ll call it “research.” 😉 Thank you!!!
This looks delicious! I am wondering if I can use Vanilla a Greek yogurt and cut back on the sugar? Have you ever tried this?
Hi Jenn, that’s a great idea! One I haven’t tried, sadly, so I’m not sure how much sugar you could cut out if you switched to vanilla. It’s something I’m willing to test at some point. If I get to it before you do, I’ll definitely let you know! Thank you for the idea!
GREAT breakfast loaf. Fell upon your site by happenstance, and so glad i did. Made your loaf immediately, had all i needed on hand, and “Voila” as yummy as you described. Will make a point to follow your blog more frequently.
Joanne, thank you so much! Such high praise. I really appreciate your comment. I’m glad you loved the yogurt cake, it’s one of my favorites! Thank you so much for stopping by and yes, I hope you visit again. 🙂