Blueberry Pound Cake

This moist blueberry pound cake recipe topped with a simple vanilla glaze folds plump, juicy blueberries into buttery pound cake for an easy dessert that also makes a lovely breakfast bake. Plus: Learn how to make sure your blueberries don’t sink and how to add the perfect hint of lemon flavor.

Meet This Blueberry Pound Cake Recipe

There is something beloved about classic, homemade cakes, and nothing tastes better than this buttery, moist blueberry pound cake. This is my go-to blueberry pound cake recipe, one I’ve been making for years  — since even before pastry school at the C.I.A. This is a moist, easy pound cake loaded with fresh blueberries that burst with their juices when baked. Serve this for dessert, breakfast, tea time (don’t forget the scones, too!), or any time you like.

Below, you’ll get a full video recipe, and learn all about this moist blueberry cake recipe, including:

• The best blueberries for baking (fresh or frozen)
• Steps for how to make blueberry pound cake
• How to add lemon flavor if you want
• How to prevent blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the cake
• Storing and serving this cake

And if you like blueberry pound cake, you will also like this recipe for Blueberry Cobbler and Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins. And this Blackberry Coffee Cake with sour cream and a nutty streusel topping, is one of my favorite berry cakes for breakfast.

Ingredients You’ll Need

This is a straightforward recipe. As with all recipes with only a few ingredients, use the best quality you can find. To make this moist blueberry pound cake recipe, you will need the following ingredients:

• 2 sticks (half pound) unsalted butter, softened: soft butter allows you to cream butter and sugar together, incorporating air properly
• 2 cups sugar, plus more to sprinkle
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tbsp (3 tsps) vanilla extract: I prefer Madagascar vanilla extract
• Lemon zest (optional): this will give a light lemon fragrance to the cake
• 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt: I use Diamond Crystal and find Morton’s too salty; adjust as necessary
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour: I use King Arthur brand
• 2 cups fresh or fresh-frozen (IQF) blueberries

Substitutions, Additions, and Ingredient Notes

• Frozen blueberries: These are a great, year-round trick. Use them straight from the freezer, without thawing. You will need to add a few extra minutes to the bake time to account for the lower starting temperature, since the frozen berries will chill the batter.
• Wild (Maine-style) blueberries: These work, but they’re not my first choice here. Their small size means you lose the big, juicy blueberry pockets. Save wild blueberries for a blueberry cobbler or pie, where their concentrated flavor gets to shine and won’t get lost in cake batter.
• Lemon-blueberry variation: Add the lemon zest called for above, then swap the milk or water in the glaze for fresh lemon juice. This will give the cake a fresh lemon accent.
• The salt: If you only have table salt, use half the amount listed. Table salt is finer and more concentrated by volume than kosher salt. I also find Morton’s kosher salt to be very salty, so cut back on that as well. Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt is the go-to chef’s choice.

Recipe Steps: How to Make Blueberry Pound Cake

This cake recipe requires just a few basic steps to make and follows a standard creaming method:

1. Cream the butter and sugar. Beat the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. I usually beat the mixture on medium high speed.
2. Add the eggs, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest (if using). Beat again until lightened and emulsified. If you would like a hint of lemon flavor, you can also add the zest of one lemon. Scrape the bowl to make sure everything is evenly mixed.
3. Mix in the baking powder and flour on low speed, just until combined. Once the flour mixture is in, switch your mixer to low and stop as soon as you no longer see streaks of flour. Overmixing here develops gluten, which turns a pound cake tough instead of tender.
4. Gently fold in the blueberries until evenly distributed.
5. Bake at 350°F until a tester comes out clean. Bake in a greased tube pan or two standard loaf pans until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour 15 minutes or so for a tube pan, less for loaves. As my baking professor at the C.I.A. used to say, the cake is done when it’s done, and your eyes and a tester matter more than the clock.

What Type of Blueberries Are Best for Blueberry Pound Cake?

All blueberries are not created equal. If possible, choose the plump, standard blueberries you see in most grocery stores, such as Hammonton blueberries. Larger blueberries distribute better when folded into the batter. When baked in the  oven, bigger blueberries mean bigger, juicier blueberry crannies in the cake.

Wild blueberries, such as those from Maine, are much smaller, with concentrated blueberry flavor. Small, wild blueberries will work, but in my pastry chef opinion, they aren’t my favorite choice for blueberry pound cake. Despite how good they taste, I find them too small in proportion to the cake batter. You really don’t get that big burst of blueberry like you do with larger berries. So choose the larger, standard blueberries if you can. Save the wild blueberries for desserts like blueberry cobbler or pie.

I often bake this cake with frozen (IQF) blueberries. Frozen blueberries make an especially great choice when blueberries are not in season. You do not have to thaw frozen blueberries before folding them into the pound cake batter. Just increase the baking time by a few minutes.

How Do You Keep Blueberries From Sinking in the Pound Cake When It Bakes?

A great pastry chef trick to keep berries from sinking into a cake: Toss the blueberries with a few tablespoons of the flour. The flour coats the blueberries, creating a grippy coating that will cling to the batter and suspend the berries in the cake.

Remember: Measure the flour for the cake recipe, then remove a portion of that flour to toss the blueberries. Do not use additional flour to coat the berries because that will change the dry ingredient measurement overall.

F.A.Q.s and Expert Tips

How to Keep Blueberry Pound Cake Moist

This is a very moist blueberry pound cake for two reasons: 1) the correct balance of butter, sugar, and dry ingredients, and 2) storing it correctly.

1. Keep your pound cake moist through proper baking.

This cake is a moist blueberry pound cake for two reasons: 1) the correct ingredient ratio of dry ingredients to liquifiers (eggs, butter, sugar), and 2) not overbaking the cake, which dries it out.

Baking time: You can bake this cake in a buttered or greased tube pan, large loaf pan (I used a 4.5-inch x 12-inch loaf pan), two standard loaf pans, or large bundt cake pan. The cake generally takes about 1 hour 15-20 minutes to bake in a tube pan. But in the words of my baking professor at the C.I.A., the cake it “done when it’s done.” If you make it in two standard loaf pans, it will take 50 to 60 minutes.

You can tell your cake is done when a cake tester comes out clean and the top feels firm and springs back — your finger shouldn’t sink into it.

2. Keep pound cake moist by storing it correctly.

This blueberry pound cake keeps for several days at room temperature in an airtight container, such as under a cake dome or wrapped. It also freezes very well. Do not refrigerate; refrigerators are quite humid and will stale the cake.

How far in advance can you make pound cake?

This blueberry pound cake will keep for at least 3 days covered at room temperature. Pound cake has a high fat content, which keeps it tender and moist. Don’t refrigerate the cake, which will stale a butter cake. This blueberry pound cake also freezes well, wrapped tightly in foil or plastic. Thaw, unwrapped, at room temperature so condensation doesn’t make the crust soggy.

How do I add lemon flavor to the cake?

This blueberry pound cake is a sweet, vanilla pound cake that lets the blueberry flavor shine. But lemon-blueberry is a very popular flavor combination for pound cake.

If you’d like to enhance this with lemon flavor, add the zest of one lemon into the batter, and make the glaze with lemon juice instead of milk or water. This will give it the perfect lemon zing without turning it into a lemon pound cake.

You will also like these sweet fruit-based recipes:

• Mixed Berry Pound Cake
• Blueberry Sheet Pan Pancakes
• The Best Blueberry Muffins
• Peach Pound Cake