Soft, sweet, packed with blueberries and covered by a blanket of streusel topping, this melt-in-your-mouth blueberry coffee cake is the best way to enjoy cake for breakfast. Recipe includes a how-to video!

Blueberry Breakfast Cake

Remember when brunch get-togethers were a thing? Holiday breakfast gatherings with extended family? Potlucks? Actually leaving the house? This blueberry coffee cake was my go-to for occasions like this for years.

Guaranteed to impress and to bring people back for seconds, it always received rave reviews and recipe requests. I’m looking forward to having an occasion to bake it again sometime soon, but until then Zach just has to indulge me (or sometimes reign me in) as I insist on blueberry coffee cake for breakfast every few days.

It may sound humble at first (how glamorous is coffee cake, anyway?), but with its juicy blueberry spangled interior, its soft, plush, melt-in-your-mouth crumb, and the thick blanket of crumbly, buttery streusel topping. It joins the ranks of other crowd pleasers like my French toast casserole, blueberry muffins, and sticky buns. Don’t wait for a special occasion to make it, though, I’m sure you can find an excuse to whip up a pan. And then make sure you let me know what you think of it!

What You Need to Make Blueberry Coffee Cake

This recipe is pretty straightforward with (mostly) basic ingredients, but let’s touch on a few of them before we begin.

• Corn starch. Corn starch is a versatile ingredient that I use in so many of my recipes for different reasons. Here, it provides a soft, plush, melt-in-your mouth crumb.
• Cream cheese. This is my secret weapon for blueberry coffee cake! It encourages a dense, tight crumb (the batter is very thick and heavy) and adds softness, moisture, and a subtly tangy flavor the complements the blueberries like nothing else.
• Buttermilk. The buttermilk is not here to react with baking soda (we’re not using any!) or any other acidic ingredient, not in this instance. Instead, it’s a thicker and more flavorful liquid that adds a subtle tang and moisture to the cake. If you don’t have it you can substitute regular milk (whole or 2%) but keep in mind the cake may not be as moist.
• The streusel ingredients pictured above on the left are also fairly common (butter, sugar flour, salt), but I do things a bit differently than you may be used to. More on that below.
• Blueberries. Of course. You can use fresh or frozen (no need to thaw), but fresh are my preference. If you’re looking to use up a surplus of blueberries, save some to make my blueberry cobbler or lemon blueberry cake, too!

This is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!

How to Make Blueberry Coffee Cake

The cake is simple and can be made with either an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer.

1. Cream together butter, cream cheese and sugars then beat in eggs and vanilla extract.
2. Whisk together dry ingredients (flour, corn starch, baking powder, salt) then alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk to the batter, stirring until completely combined.
3. Carefully stir in blueberries.
4. Spread into greased 13×9 baking pan.

Tip: While it’s not impossible to over-mix this cake, it’s much more difficult to do so with this recipe than it is with many of my other cakes (like my vanilla cake). It’s actually more likely you’ll accidentally under-mix, so make sure your butter and cream cheese are well creamed and your flour is thoroughly incorporated!

How to Make Streusel for Coffee Cake

I make my streusel the easy way, no pastry cutter or ice cold butter required. It’s simple and I think it has a better, more buttery taste than classic streusel…

1. First combine flour, sugars, and just a pinch of salt.
2. Add melted butter (make sure it’s not too hot!)
3. Use a fork to toss the ingredients together until all of the flour/sugar mixture is moistened. Don’t overdo it! It should be clumpy! Over-mixing yields a paste-like streusel.
4. Use your hands to crumble/scatter over the blueberry cake.

Once everything’s assembled, all that’s left to do is bake your blueberry coffee cake.

Tip: I typically bake this cake in a metal pan. You may use a glass pan instead, but keep in mind it will most likely take longer to bake.

Frequently Asked Questions

I usually don’t add a glaze to my blueberry coffee cake because it’s perfectly fine without it. However, if you’re craving a pretty white drizzle, just use my easy vanilla glaze.

More Recipes You Might Like

• Blueberry Pie
• French Toast
• Blueberry Pancakes
• Cheese Danish
• Buttermilk Pancakes

Enjoy!

Let’s bake together! Make sure to check out the how-to VIDEO in the recipe card! 

My blueberry coffee cake was originally published on October 26 2015. Photos have been updated, a video has been added, and the recipe has been modified to be more clear, to include metric measurements, and to use a more classic streusel topping.