This simple snacking cake is made with lemon zest, delicious blueberries, and an almond streusel. This is the perfect cake to have on hand, and is wonderful to have with a cup of coffee. Plus, this cake only takes 15 minutes to prep before popping into the oven!
Tell me about this cake!
- Flavor: the cake is made with ground almonds, yogurt and lemon zest. You then have a moist blueberry layer, and finally an almond, cinnamon and brown sugar crumb topping.
- Texture: the yellow cake layer is super soft and tender and pairs so well with the crunchy almond streusel topping.
- Ease: this is a really simple cake to make!
- Time: this recipe only takes 15 minutes, but you’ll then need to bake it for about 80 minutes. It will be worth the wait!
- Would I make this cake again? This is the perfect cake to whip together when you have company coming over, or you’re really feeling like having cake for breakfast! I’ve made this cake several times and it is so delicious.
Making the cake batter
This cake is so easy to put together. Grease and line your cake pan. It’s best to use a springform pan as turning the cake pan upside down will lead to a lot of crumbs everyone! But, if you don’t have one, you can just gently take the cake out of the pan – just be prepared to do a little bit of clean up!
Start off by beating the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add your eggs one at a time, making sure your scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl before each addition. If you’ve ever poured cake batter into a pan and found the last few spoonfuls of batter don’t look the same as the rest of the batter, it’s because those bottom and sides weren’t scraped enough. That batter hasn’t been mixed with the rest of the ingredients, so make sure you scrape thoroughly!
In a medium bowl, whisk together the rest of your dry ingredients. In a jug, whisk together your milk, extracts, and yogurt.
Add the flour in three additions, alternating with the wet ingredients. Make sure you start and end with the dry ingredients. Fold in your lemon zest.
Toss your blueberries with half a tablespoon of flour. This will help your blueberries not sink into the cake! I used frozen blueberries in this recipe, if you also use frozen blueberries make sure to only take them out just before you bake the cake.
Pour your cake batter into the prepared pan, and then sprinkle over your blueberries so it covers the batter evenly. Bake your cake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Making the Almond Crumb Topping
Make a crumb topping by mixing together flour, cinnamon, salt, brown sugar, and softened butter. Use your fingers to mix them all together until it resembles coarse sand.
Once the cake has 20 minutes left in the oven, pull it out and sprinkle over your crumb topping. Then sprinkle over the almonds. I did test this recipe with the crumb topping on the cake for the entire time, however it did burn too much!
Frequently Asked Questions
I used an 8 inch light colored pan for this cake. You could definitely use a 9 inch pan but decrease the baking time by about 10-15 minutes. If you use a dark pan, the sides of the cake will brown and harden.
Raspberries could be delicious in this! I wouldn’t recommend using strawberries unless you sliced them very thinly, as they contain a lot more moisture.
This cake batter is pretty thick due to the yogurt replacing some of the milk, but there is always the risk of some of the fruit sinking! Tossing your fruit in flour helps the blueberries stay on top.
You could use sour cream instead of yogurt, but I do not recommend replacing all of the yogurt with milk – this would make the batter too liquidy.
Cover the cake and keep it in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Other cake recipes to try:
Make sure to tag me on Instagram @alpineella and leave a review below if you’ve made this cake! If you want more baking ideas, you can follow me on Pinterest.
Blueberry Almond Lemon Cake
Equipment
- 8 inch cake pan
Ingredients
Cake
- 140 grams unsalted butter room temperature
- 200 grams sugar
- 156 grams all purpose flour
- 60 grams ground almonds
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 eggs room temperature
- 60 ml yogurt room temperature
- 60 ml milk room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- zest of one lemon
- 232 grams frozen blueberries
- 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
Almond Topping
- 30 grams flaked almonds
- 50 grams light brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 42 grams unsalted butter softened
- 42 grams all purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C. Grease an 8 inch spring form pan and line with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, combine all of the topping ingredients except for the flaked almonds. Mix together with your fingers until it resembles coarse sand. Set to the side.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together your butter and sugar on medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy. While the mixer is on low speed, add the eggs one at a time. Scrape the bowl before each addition.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt. In a jug, whisk together the milk, vanilla extract, almond extract and yogurt.
- Add the flour in three additions, alternating with the milk mixture, starting and ending with the flour. Fold in your lemon zest.
- Toss your blueberries with 1 tablespoon of flour.
- Pour the batter into the pan and then sprinkle your blueberries on top.
- Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Once you have 20 minutes left in the oven, take out the cake and sprinkle over the streusel and the flaked almonds.
- Your cake is ready when a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Rosie
This looks amazing! Do you think I could use blackberries instead?
Ella
Hi Rosie, you could definitely use blackberries!