I don’t crave sweet things very often, but I’m a firm believer that my morning cup of coffee is made better with a not-too-sweet baked good. Exhibit A? This Lemon + Blueberry Crumb Cake. It’s a staple in my kitchen and it should be in yours, too! This crumb cake is loaded with juicy blueberries, lemon zest, and vanilla, and it comes together with a buttery, crumbly streusel topping. It’s kind of insane. You might want to double the recipe – trust me, it’ll go quickly!
This recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Blueberry Crumb Cake, which calls for milk and all-purpose flour.
Blueberry Crumb Cake
Ingredients
- Topping:
- 5 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/2 Cup granulated sugar
- 1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter cold is fine
- Pinch of salt
- Cake:
- 1 1/2 Cups whole wheat flour
- 2 Teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon salt
- 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 3/4 Cup granulated sugarZest of 1 lemon I used a microplane grater/zester
- 1 large egg
- 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 2/3 Cups blueberries - I used thawed/drained frozen blueberries. Fresh blueberries in season would be ideal but frozen blueberries worked out great.
- 1/2 Cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375°F.
- Butter a 9-inch round springform baking pan, cake pan, or square brownie pan and dust it lightly with flour; line it with a round of parchment paper. Set aside.
- Next, make the crumble topping. In small bowl, mix flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt together with fork. Add butter in little by little until the mixture is crumbly, using fork or your fingers to break up the pieces of butter as needed until crumbly. Set crumble topping aside.
- In large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together by hand, set aside.
- In a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand held mixer, beat sugar, butter, and lemon zest together until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract and beat until combined.
- On a low speed, mix in 1/3 of the dry mixture with a splash of almond milk until combined, and repeat until you've added all of dry mixture and almond milk.
- Fold blueberries into mixture by hand until evenly distributed.
- Pour cake mixture into your prepared pan and smooth it out on top. Distribute crumbly streusel topping evenly across top.
- Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick or fork inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cake cool for 20 minutes. I sliced the cake like a grid into bars, but you could also cut into big wedges. Serve cake by itself or with a cup of coffee.
Two important side notes: I used a springform pan which I would highly recommend for this! You could use any cake pan, or even a square pan to make this into bars. Another side note: greasing/buttering your pan helps get the cake out, but lining your pan with parchment paper really gets the job done. To prepare: I place my pan on top of a sheet of parchment paper, trace around the pan, and cut the paper to fit inside. I like to cut out a few at a time so I have them on hand for my next cake project.