Blueberry Lemon Yogurt Cake

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I finally bought a loaf pan. I have all sorts of baking dishes and pans, but never a loaf pan. Go figure. So I wanted to make something good. I've tried my hand at muffins many times and they were always ok, but nothing great, so I was pretty determined to get this right. And as it turns out this is a really wonderful recipe, it's adapted from Ina Garten with just a couple changes. It's moist, not overly sweet and so good. Jeff says it's almost as good as an Entenmann's, ha ha. I added blueberries to this recipe so it might account for why my bake time was longer, the directions say 50 minutes but mine took a full hour.

I used meyer lemons, they are great for desserts, sweeter than other lemons and have a pretty yellow orange color. Also the only yogurt I had was a 2% greek style and it didn't seem to matter that it wasn't whole-milk yogurt.

And somehow I missed the step about the sugar-lemon juice mixture poured over the cake in the original recipe, why do I have all this lemon juice I wondered, but I'm so satisfied with the way this turned out I'll just post the recipe as I made it. Extra lemon juice is now for tonight's salad!

Recipe below.

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Blueberry Lemon Yogurt Cake
(adapted from Ina Garten)

  • 1 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup plain yogurt* 
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons lemon zest, about 2 lemons
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil**
  • 1 cup blueberries

Glaze:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, strained
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease loaf pan, line the bottom and longer sides with parchment paper and grease the paper with butter.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl combine the yogurt, sugar eggs, lemon zest and vanilla, whisk until combined. 

Whisk the flour mixture into the liquid mixture until well combined.

Fold in the oil with a rubber spatula until thoroughly mixed***, then add the blueberries (lightly coat the blueberries in flour prior to adding, it prevents them from sinking).

Pour the batter in the the pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, checking at the 50 minute mark until toothpick comes out clean in center.

Remove from oven to baking rack and cool for about 10 minutes leaving it in the pan, remove cake from pan with the parchment handles and let cool another 10 minutes or so until just warm.

Whisk together the confectioners sugar, lemon juice and zest until combined, pour over cake. 

*The original recipe calls for whole-milk yogurt, I used 2% greek yogurt and it worked fine.

**I only had canola oil on hand and the original recipes calls for vegetable oil, so either will work.

***The oil seemed to not want to combine so easily, but will after about a minute of folding.

Update: I forgot to add the amount of blueberries in the original post, 1 cup works great, you can always add a little bit more if you like!​

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