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Lemon Blackberry Coffee Cake with Lemon Streusel

Lemon Blackberry Coffee Cake
This Lemon Blackberry Coffee Cake is another recipe that takes advantage of fresh, summertime berries. I, obviously, used blackberries in this case. Blueberries are definitely more popular for muffins and coffee cakes than blackberries are, since they tend to hold their shape and not “bleed” too much juice into a baked good. But there are advantages to using bigger, juicer berries: the fresh blackberries give this coffee cake an almost cobbler-like feel to it – which makes this one coffee cake that is just as good for dessert as it is for breakfast. You can use frozen berries, tossing them in a teaspoon or two of flour before stirring them into the batter, but if you can get fresh berries you’re going to get the best results.

The cake batter itself is moist and buttery, enriched with both butter and buttermilk for a very flavorful base for the blueberries. Lemon zest is creamed into the butter and sugar, which releases even more of the potent lemon oil from the zest as it rubs against the coarse sugar. The lemon flavor does not dominate the cake, however, which allows the berries, buttermilk, vanilla and other elements of the cake to stand out without being overshadowed by tangy lemon.

Like so many other coffee cakes, this one is topped with streusel. To complement the lemon in the buttermilk coffee cake batter, I added some lemon zest to the streusel as well. The streusel doesn’t have a strong lemon flavor, but you can clearly taste the extra lemon when you’re eating the cake and that gives it a nice brightness, as well as adding a sweet and crunchy topping to the moist cake.

Lemon Blackberry Coffee Cake with Lemon Streusel
Streusel
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon zest
1/4 cup butter, chilled

Cake
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 tbsp lemon zest
3 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
16-oz (approx 2 cups) blackberries

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9-inch square baking pan.
Make the streusel. In a medium bowl, whisk together all streusel ingredients except the chilled butter.
Cut chilled butter into several small pieces and rub into the dry ingredients until the mixture appears to have a sandy texture and no pieces of butter larger than a small pea remain.
Make the cake. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar and lemon zest until mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla extract.
Stir in one third o the flour mixture, followed by half of the buttermilk. Stir in another third of the flour mixture, followed by the remaining buttermilk. Stir in remaining flour mixture, mixing just until no streaks of dry ingredients remain. Fold in blackberries.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Top evenly with streusel mixture.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Cool completely in the pan before serving.

Serves 12.

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9 Comments
  • leaca
    August 3, 2011

    I have this “thing” for lemon cake and berries. I will have to try this. It is berry picking time here in Alaska….so a perfect time to try it.

  • Blog is the New Black
    August 3, 2011

    Looks wonderful! Love streusel cakes.

  • TheUrbanMum
    August 3, 2011

    Yum. I love that I have found your site. This Streusel Cake looks fabulous and will be next on my Procrastibake list. I wonder if I could use frozen blackberries… They are not in season for us in Australia at the moment. Will try and let you know the results.

  • Lauren at Keep It Sweet
    August 4, 2011

    This cake looks wonderful, especially with that lemon streusel!

  • Heather Smoke
    August 8, 2011

    Anything with lemon and cake just makes my mouth start watering! And cake is always better with streusel.

  • Penny G
    May 27, 2012

    We have several blackberry bushes, so I am always on the lookout for berry recipes. Made this yesterday & it was fantastic!!!

  • Rebecca
    June 6, 2012

    Absolutely loved the recipe…the lemon streusel has such a wonderful delicate flavour and the cake itself the base is light and fluffy and melt in ur mouth. Cant stop with 1 piece 😛

    Its a generous amount of batter so its a good cake for a afternoon tea party or when having friends over.

  • THis looks just perfect. We are heading to Glacier National Park for a camping / hiking expedition and this is going to be dessert!

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