Oh, friends, I really, really hope you like blueberries as much as I do. Not only have I already shared these completely amazing blueberry crumb bars and blueberry cobbler, but somewhere along the way during my baking journey I got completely carried away and now have 3 more perfected blueberry recipes waiting in the wings for you. The good news is that 1) I promise to try and space them out as much as I can, and 2) if you’re not a blueberry fan (which you really should be because blueberries are amazing, but I won’t hold it against you 😉), in most cases you can substitute your favorite summer berry. That holds true for this Blueberry Cake, as well. Raspberries, blackberries, even sliced strawberries would work well in today’s Blueberry Cake recipe, but I highly recommend starting with blueberries (I’ve been meaning to try with peaches).
To make this cake incredibly soft, I use the same technique that I used with my favorite coffee cake and added a whole brick of cream cheese into the batter. The cream cheese makes the cake dense, moist, and so incredibly soft that each bite almost just melts in your mouth. It’s quite a far cry from its light and fluffy sister: my lemon blueberry cake! The cream cheese also adds a subtle flavor, just a hint of tang that you won’t be able to recognize as cream cheese while you are noshing away, but that enhances the flavor of the blueberry cake.
Tips for Making Blueberry Cake
This Blueberry Cake is really pretty simple to make, but I do have a few tips to help you along the way.
Unless you have a really deep 9″ cake pan, I recommend using a springform pan for this recipe. Springform pans have tall edges and this recipe makes a fair amount of batter, so if you use a standard cake pan there’s a high possibility that the batter will overflow the pan while baking. Trust me, nobody wants to clean up that mess! You can use fresh or frozen berries, either works great in this recipe. As I mentioned above, if blueberries aren’t your thing, an equal amount of raspberries, blackberries, or sliced strawberries would also work just as well. Due to the density and volume of the batter, this blueberry cake does take a long time to bake, at least an hour! Have patience and make sure that the center is completely baked (use the toothpick test) so you don’t cut in to a half baked cake! I top mine off with a lemon glaze. If you don’t like lemon, you can leave out the glaze completely or just make a simple vanilla glaze by substituting the lemon juice called for in the recipe with water and increasing the amount of vanilla to ½ teaspoon.
Alright, that’s it for today and I’ll try to keep my next blueberry recipe (blueberry lemonade!) at bay for at least a little while longer. Enjoy!
