Blueberry Cake - Incredibly Moist

Recipe: Blueberry Cake Recipe Recipe »

This incredibly moist blueberry cake is easy to make with just a bowl and a spoon - no mixer needed. Packed with juicy blueberries, it stays soft for days thanks to a simple baking trick that locks in moisture. Perfect for those relaxed baking days when you want a reliable, tender cake that works with fresh or frozen blueberries. Ideal to make ahead and even better the next day.

About This Blueberry Cake Recipe

Today I'm going to teach you how to make the most incredibly moist blueberry cake. It uses all my tricks to making a moist cake (sour cream, buttermilk, extra egg yolks, oil and butter) but also a new trick I've recently learned that GUARANTEES MOISTNESS for your cake and it is what I will be doing for all cakes from now on!

Blueberry cake is a simple cake, you don't need a mixer or special equipment, just a bowl and a spoon to mix it. For that reason it is perfect to make if you're away for the holidays and staying at a house where they don't have any special baking equipment or if you just don't want to get out your mixer. This blueberry cake is actually based on my favourite blueberry muffin recipe just rejigged to make in a larger cake form and with the moistness more pronounced.

My secret new tip for keeping cakes moist is to "sweat the cake" aka cover the cake after it comes out of the oven! This prevents any heat and steam releasing from the cake and keeps the moisture INSIDE the cake. And it makes an incredible difference to the resulting cake! It is similar to the method used with making my banana cake.

This one tip will change your cake life I promise!!!

Video How To Make Blueberry Cake Recipe

Video: How to Make Blueberry Cake Recipe

Ingredients For Blueberry Cake Recipe

Flour - Use plain flour or cake flour if you have it. As I was away I only had plain flour and it worked well. To make 1 cup of cake flour, replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour with cornflour/fine cornstarch and whisk well to distribute. I usually keep a canister of cake flour in the fridge. Tip: store flour in the fridge especially during the summer months as pantry moths love flour!

Sugar - Use caster sugar for the cake and to toss the blueberries in. Then we use raw sugar for the crunchy topping.

Baking powder - To keep the cake light. Make sure that the baking powder is still in date.

Salt - Use fine salt that can melt into the batter.

Sour cream - Full fat sour cream.

Buttermilk - I make my own buttermilk by adding lemon juice to milk. Tip: juice the lemon after we zest it. I have also tried this with oat milk and it worked well.

Oil - I used extra virgin olive oil but use any sort of oil for this.

Butter - Use salted butter for better flavour.

Eggs - Use large or 700g eggs.

Lemon zest - 1 lemon is enough for this

Vanilla - use vanilla paste, extract or essence

Blueberries - Frozen or fresh blueberries work in this. If using frozen, thaw the berries before baking.

Tips For Making Blueberry Cake Recipe

1 - I use all of my favourite "moist cake" tips for this blueberry cake. Firstly I add an extra egg yolk just to keep it moist. Egg yolks are a natural emulsifier that binds liquid and fat so extra yolks do so much to a cake mix.

2 - Sour cream and buttermilk keep a cake's texture extra tender because they contain acids that break down the gluten strands. The tougher the gluten strands, the tougher the cake. Sour cream has the added bonus of fat for moistness.

3 - We also use a mixture of butter and oil. Oil is to keep the cake moist while we also use butter for flavour rather than using just oil.

4 - Make sure to toss the blueberries in the sugar and flour. The flour coats the blueberries and prevents them from all sinking to the bottom while the sugar sweetens the berries (I often find frozen blueberries quite tart).

5 - The baking time is 1 hour and 35 minutes which is a long time but we are baking the cake at a low temperature (another tip for moist cakes). Make sure that a skewer inserted inside the centre comes out clean.

6 - Immediately cover cake with parchment (don't use cling film, it will melt) and a plate to keep any steam from escaping. This was the steam is trapped inside the cake keeping it moist.

7 - This cake is great made the day ahead too! I bake it and then let it sit covered overnight where the cake cools off.

8 - This cake keeps well for up to 1 week. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge (because it is so moist with lots of fruit, anything longer than 3 days will encourage mould to grow if outside the fridge).

Other blueberry cakes you might like to try next are: Upside Down Blueberry Cake, Blueberry Cheesecake and gluten free Lavender Blueberry Cake.

Blueberry Cake Recipe Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 95 minutes

Serves: 8

Ingredients Needed

• 2.5 cups/360g/13ozs cake or plain all purpose flour
• 1 1/3 cups/300g/10.6ozs caster sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup/125g/4ozs sour cream
• 1/2 cup/125g/4ozs buttermilk
• 1/2 cup/125ml/4flozs oil
• 100g/3.5ozs melted butter
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
• 1 2/3 cup/250g/8.8ozs blueberries frozen or fresh
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons raw sugar

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 PREPARE - Preheat oven to 150C/300F fan forced 170C/338F conventional. Grease and line a round 20cm/8inch baking tin. In a large bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together. Whisk in the sugar and salt.

Step 2 MIX - In a jug, whisk the sour cream, buttermilk, oil, melted butter, eggs, egg yolk, lemon zest and vanilla until you get a uniform texture and the oil has emulsified. Fold this wet mixture into the dry ingredients in 3 batches, making sure not to overmix. Toss blueberries in the flour and sugar, and fold into the batter. Scoop into the prepared tin and smooth over the top. Sprinkle raw sugar over the top of the cake.

Step 3 BAKE - Bake for 1 hour 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, cover with parchment and then a plate and leave to cool completely.

Personal Note

A donkey bite was the impetus for this blueberry cake. I made this cake while away for a long weekend. We stayed at a stunning cottage in the Southern Highlands called Cuttaway Cottage that is also dog friendly. The Davidson family that own it are so lovely and I was so excited to meet their donkeys and ponies. The afternoon we arrived, they came down with some carrots for us to feed the donkeys. For the week prior to our visit I could not stop talking about the donkeys and ponies with Mr NQN.

Grainne explained that to feed donkeys, you need to hold your hand out flat and place the carrot on the flat of your palm. Except I of course didn't quite listen and my thumb was sticking out. Donkey Bella mistook my thumb for a carrot and chomped down on it. A donkey has a firm chomp but it doesn't really have sharp teeth so it was more a chomping pain than anything else. Glyn ran to the house and grabbed a bag of frozen blueberries and a first aid kit. It was actually fine and the next day I swear the donkeys en masse apologised as their heads were bowed and they brayed. "It's ok, it's my fault! My finger looked like a carrot!" I said patting them all.

We fed them watermelon and then I decided to make this cake as the house was so beautiful and the view from the kitchen just had to be the setting for this blueberry cake using the blueberries and as a thank you for a wonderful stay I left them this blueberry cake.

So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried the cake steaming method? Do you have any tips for keeping cakes moist?