Blueberry Breakfast Cake
A one bowl, simple blueberry cake recipe made snacking or breakfast style cake in a square pan. Oil and buttermilk make this cake wonderfully moist and fluffy, there’s bursts of blueberry throughout so you get some in every bite, and the sugar crusted top is a delightful treat.
Why this blueberry cake is perfect for breakfast
- The cinnamon blueberry combination is so delicious!
- It’s one bowl, and takes about 10 minutes to put together
- It’s low on sugar, has better-for-you fats; ideal for breakfast (although tbh it tastes great with brown butter too!)
- You can make it with oat flour to make it gluten free, and even more breakfast friendly!
Recipe origins
I started testing this one based on this lemon berry muffin recipe and later tied it in with some lessons learned from my everyday butter cake, so you’ll notice a few similarities. The major changes I made to adapt it into a cake were to: swap the lemon zest for cinnamon, swap the sugar for brown sugar.
Recipe Ingredients
Brown sugar: use light or dark. If it’s clumpy, press the clumps between your fingers or against the bowl with the back of a spoon.
Eggs: three large eggs. You can do it with less but it will be denser.
Cinnamon: This gives the cake a lovely, warm (an almost autumn-like) flavor. You can leave this out if you don’t like cinnamon.
Oil: I use avocado oil which is flavorless and keeps the cake moist.Grapeseed or canola oil work well too. As does melted or browned butter (if you are doing brown butter, just brown one stick or 113g, you’ll get close to 90g, and you can use that in place of the fat.)
Buttermilk: Gives the cake a fluffy, wonderful texture. You can also use kefir or a plain yogurt (not greek).
Flour: All purpose flour. But I’ve also tested this with oat flour and it worked well. Just swap for equal amounts.
Blueberries: Fresh is best because they won’t drop any more water that’s in the berries themselves. Frozen berries tend to have ice crystals around them which melt into the batter and cause an excess of water.
How to make Blueberry Breakfast Cake
First, whisk or beat together the eggs and sugar:
Add the vanilla and salt and whisk. You’ll see noticeable color changes as you whisk. It’ll turn a much lighter shade of brown and become rather fluffy.
Add the oil slowly, mixing as you pour it in (in this photo I’m using browned butter):
Slow is important so that the oil emulsifies into the egg & sugar.
Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder):
Then add the buttermilk and whisk until you can’t see any more flour bits. It’s ok if it’s lumpy!
Fold in the blueberries and then pour the batter into the pan, and sprinkle on some sugar for the topping:
I like to add more blueberries on top:
Bake until a cake tester comes out clean or until you can press the middle top and it springs back.
Modifying this Blueberry Cake Recipe
Can I use a different berry for the cake?
Sure, I think raspberries would be wonderful here too!
Can I make this in a different cake tin?
You can make it in a round or square cake pan but it should be 9” inches wide.
Can I make this gluten-free?
Use a 1 to 1 gluten free flour substitute.
Can I make this dairy-free ?
To make a dairy-free blueberry cake I’d use dairy-free yogurt and thin it slightly with water.
Blueberry Breakfast Cake
Ingredients
- 150 g or ¾ cup brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 70 g or ⅓ cup canola avocado or grapeseed oil (flavorless)
- 180 g or ¾ cup kefir or buttermilk
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 260 g or 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups fresh blueberries
- 2-4 tablespoons organic granulated sugar or turbinado sugar
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a 9” square or round baking pan. .
- To mix you can either use a hand mixer or a whisk:
- Place the brown sugar, eggs, cinnamon, salt and vanilla in a bowl. Whisk or beat until very light and fluffy, the color will change from a darker brown to light and fluffy.
- While whisking, slowly pour in the oil then whisk/beat until it is well incorporated (at least another minute if using a whisk).
- Sift in the flour, add the baking powder and then slowly pour in the buttermilk, while mixing. Whisk until you have a thick, shiny cohesive batter. Fold in the blueberries. If your batter is on the thin side, put some batter in the pan first then add the blueberries (this way they won’t all sink to the bottom).
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread into an even layer. Sprinkle the sugar on top.
- Bake the cake until a cake tester comes out clean, for about 30 minutes, (when you look at the tester ignore the blueberry bits, they will be gloopy).
- Let the cake cool in the pan, then use the parchment sling to remove it to set on a cooling rack.
- Cake is best eaten day one but stays moist for 2 days after.
- Store cake in an airtight container.
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
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Absolutely delicious cake. I went by weight measurements and used Greek yogurt cut with milk in place of the buttermilk. I also added a streusel topping which I highly recommend. Only giving 4 stars because the recipe needs to be amended to put the bake time closer to 1 hour.
Hi Karli, when you change things in the recipe like subbing in a heavier ingredient (yogurt has less water) and add a topping, you can generally expect the bake time to be longer as the heat needs to get through more layers. Glad you liked the flavor and I’ll have to try your idea of adding a streusel one day.
Delightful! The slightly crispy top from the sugar is super fast and easy and keeps the cake interesting since it’s not very sweet. I used a 9” square pan and fresh, room temp berries, and the cake was done within 20 minutes.
Thanks for another great recipe, Sam! And something we had all the ingredients for after blueberry picking, without a stop at the store!
I know you said plain yogurt can be used instead of the buttermilk, do you have any thoughts on sour cream also being an alternative for buttermilk or would that not work?
Sour cream has a similar ph so it would work too, I’d still thin it out with some water though (just to make it creamy rather than thick).
Hi Sam! I just found your site and am so drawn to your taste and aesthetic. I am not very good at baking YET but Im inspired by you and want to perfect some recipes. I made this and it did not come out right. I noticed your directions in the blog are a bit different than the steps in the ‘method’ section which is what I followed but thinking about there are several things that I could have done wrong. Im trying to figure out what I should do differently next time. So I didn’t mix the eggs and sugar separately first, I used canola oil, a mixer and I mixed the baking powder in with the flour -a little bit at a time perhaps over mixing…? The dough didn’t look like yours when I put it in the pan and it came out very chewy. I may have also taken it out too early as I tend to over bake but what do you think was the cause here? Thanks so much for all your help.
Hi Heather! Sorry that happened and thank you for reaching out so kindly. Taking it out too early would mean that the cake isn’t done baking and the center would still be wet or like liquid it wouldn’t make it chewy. Canola oil is fine, adding the leavening with the flour is fine though in the pics I added it earlier but either works. The eggs and sugar should not be mixed separately, they are beaten together until light and fluffy, I say you can do this with a whisk or with a hand beater. This step is where air is beaten into the cake, if you didn’t do this it could be why the cake was dense? After you get to that light and fluffy stage then the oil goes in slowly as you mix, this is so you don’t deflate the mixture. Does this help? The only difference between the method and the recipe card is when the baking powder was added but that doesn’t really make a difference. If your batter was quite different than what’s in the photos and video, it could just be that the early ingredients weren’t mixed enough.
Had one of these cakes in Italy and I’ve searched forever for the recipe until finally coming across this, it’s absolutely beautiful.
Great recipe. I did make a few swaps based on what I had—used fresh-milled flour instead of all purpose; used applesauce instead of oil; used full fat yogurt thinned out with milk instead of kefir/buttermilk; used 1.5 cups of frozen berries, did not thaw. I think what makes it possible to make some substitutions is that this recipe has weights and not just volume measurements. I wish more recipes offered weights! The cake is not so sweet, the turbinado on top makes a great crunchy little extra sweetness.
Will definitely make again.
Easy and very good cake…liked the brown sugar factor – 3 eggs makes it light. Thank you
can i use normal milk instead?
Maybe thin out some yogurt? Regular milk doesn’t have enough acidity or fat.
Blueberry Breakfast Cake saved the day when our planned Christmas morning breakfast didn’t work out! For some reason it took more than 40 minutes for a toothpick to come out clean, but the whole family loved it. Will definitely be baking again!
Made this to use up some blueberries I knew no one was going to eat and would make it again and again! It was light, the exact sweetness I like, full of blueberries, and was even better the next day. Easy to make and delicious!
Such a lovely and not too sweet cake! I really like that it’s made with pantry staples. It came together so quickly! Perfect for breakfast!
Thanks, Sam, I think I forgot to leave a star rating on my previous comment.
appreciate it – thank you!
Hi Sam, thanks for the recipe! Yummy and I loved the plush texture. I made with the oat flour option. I really wanted fat buttery crumbs on top though, do you have a gf crumb recipe you’d recommend throwing on top?
Hi Jess! So happy you loved it. A crumb on this would be lovely, I have a streusel component in this muffin recipe: https://buttermilkbysam.com/lemon-berry-muffins/ and for this I might swap the lemon zest for some cinnamon. If you want a dense layer of crumbs on top, double that recipe.
Making this for my 1 year olds birthday tomorrow. Going to top it with lemon whipped cream. Blue skies and sunshine!
Perfect!
Thank you!
Can I use frozen blueberries and if so rinse and dry before adding?
you can, i’d rinse and dry them a bit – and maybe coat in a teaspoon of flour!