This Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake recipe is sponsored by King Arthur Flour and all opinions are my own, as always.
This Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake is bursting with fresh lemon flavor and juicy blueberries! It starts with a perfectly moist lemon almond cake layer with fresh blueberries piled with crumb topping and drizzled with lemon glaze. It’s gluten-free and paleo and will become a favorite dessert or breakfast treat with the first bite!
Have I mentioned that coffee cake is my favorite thing to bake? It’s also one of my all time favorite treats to indulge in.
Whether we’re talking dessert, snack, or a special breakfast treat, not only is it the perfect coffee companion but it has so much to offer on its own!
Between a moist flavorful cake (think lemons, sweet blueberries and almonds) and nice thick crumb topping and a lemony glaze, you won’t believe this cake is grain free and paleo!
What You Need to Make Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake
The ingredients are simple and you also have a couple of options if something doesn’t work for you. Here’s what you’ll need to bake this cake:
- Lemons (juice + zest)
- King Arthur Flour Almond Flour
- Eggs
- Maple sugar, or coconut sugar)
- Coconut oil, ghee, or grass fed butter
- Vanilla extract
- Almond extract
- Baking soda
- Fine sea salt
- Fresh blueberries
- Powdered maple sugar (see below) or organic powdered sugar
How To Make Paleo Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake
First, make the crumb topping. Use a pastry blender or fork to combine the ingredients until crumbly, then chill in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use.
Next, prepare the cake batter. Preheat your oven to 350° F and line an 8” square cake pan with parchment paper on the bottom and sides. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, lemon juice and zest, melted coconut oil or ghee, both extracts, and the sugar.
In a separate bowl combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda, then stir this mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined.
Fold in half of the blueberries, then transfer to the prepared pan. Top with the remaining blueberries, and then all the crumb topping. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until set and golden brown.
While the cake cools, prepare the lemon glaze by whisking the ingredients in a bowl. You can glaze the cake when it’s slightly warm or room temperature.
Baking with King Arthur Flour Almond Flour
King Arthur Flour Almond Flour is a fine, blanched almond flour that’s perfect for baking so many treats!
It gives your baked goods a great texture and slightly nutty flavor that complements cookies, cakes, muffins, and more so well. I especially love how it makes this coffee cake moist, tender, and also adds extra almond flavor.
King Arthur Flour also makes an awesome Paleo Baking Flour that subs 1:1 with regular all purpose flour, so make sure you check that one out ASAP!
How to Make Paleo Powdered Sugar
If you choose to make your own paleo friendly powdered sugar, it’s incredibly simple and quick.
You can use either maple or coconut sugar, but I prefer maple since it’s lighter in color and has a better flavor in my opinion. For a low carb option, you can use monk fruit or erythritol instead of maple or coconut sugar.
Simply blend your sugar of choice in a NutriBullet (what I use), high-speed blender or food processor until it has a powdery consistency. Make sure to measure the sugar after blending to add the correct amount.
Can I Make this Paleo Coffee Cake Nut Free?
Since almond flour is one of a kind and has its own unique properties, you won’t be able to sub in another flour here.
In general, you need more almond flour in any given recipe than you would other grain free flours – such as cassava or coconut. Trying to sub one of these in will leave the cake dry, crumbly, and tasteless. For a similar recipe that’s nut free – you can try my lemon blueberry muffins.
I hope you’re ready for a seriously delicious, good for you sweet treat – grab your ingredients because it’s time to bake – let’s go!
Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake {Gluten-Free, Paleo}
Ingredients
Crumb Topping:
- 3/4 cup (72g) King Arthur Flour blanched almond flour
- 1/4 cup ghee refined coconut oil, or grass fed butter
- 6 Tbsp maple sugar
- finely grated zest of one medium lemon
Cake Batter:
- 3 eggs room temperature
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice about 2-3 lemons
- Grated zest of 1 medium lemon
- 1/4 cup melted refined coconut oil or melted ghee, cooled a bit (not hot)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp pure almond extract
- 2/3 cup pure maple sugar coconut sugar will work too, the color will be much darker
- 2 1/2 cups (240 g ) King Arthur Flour blanched almond flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/4 cups fresh blueberries
Glaze:
- 2/3 cup organic powdered sugar or powdered maple sugar for a Paleo option*
- 1 1/2 - 2 Tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
Crumb Topping:
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Blend all ingredients with a fork or pastry blender until a texture is crumbly. Chill in the refrigerator while you prepare the cake batter.
Cake Batter:
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Preheat your oven to 350° F and place an oven rack in the middle of the oven. Line an 8 x 8” square baking pan with parchment paper on the bottom and sides, for easy removal.
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In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, lemon juice and zest, coconut oil or ghee, vanilla and almond extract, and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine the almond flour, baking soda and salt.
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Stir the dry mixture into the wet until well combined and smooth. Fold in half the blueberries.
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Using a silicone spatula, transfer cake batter into the parchment lined cake pan and smooth out evenly. Sprinkle the remaining blueberries on top, then sprinkle all the crumb topping over the blueberries to evenly cover.
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Bake on the middle rack in the preheated oven for 28-32 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted near the center of the cake comes out with a few crumbs.
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Place the cake pan on a wire rack to allow it to cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes. Use the parchment overhang to remove the cake from the pan to continue cooling on the wire rack.
Glaze:
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While the cake cools, make the glaze. Combine the powdered sugar of choice with 1 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice, adding drop by drop more if needed to get a drizzly consistency.
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Drizzle the glaze over the partially cooled or cooled cake as desired. Serve cake either slightly warm or at room temperature. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*Simply blend your maple sugar (or sugar of choice) in a NutriBullet (what I use), high-speed blender or food processor until it has a powdery consistency. Make sure to measure the sugar after blending to add the correct amount.
Nutrition
Want More Paleo Coffee Cake Recipes? Try one of These!
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Hi – I love all of your recipes. Is the amount of flour for the crumble correct? 3/4 leaves the mixture pasty not a crumble at all? Thanks.
How many servings are you figuring for the 31carb/pc?
I was wondering the same. She said 12 servings… but the nutritional info looks like it for 6 ??♀️
I love cake and really like the way you make it. Thank you for your informatin.
So very good. I did cut back a bit on the sugar a bit and still great! Thank you ?
Can I use frozen blueberries?
No. I just used frozen and had to bake the cake 25 min longer and it’s still not fully cooked. Maybe there is more moisture with frozen and mine weren’t completely thawed out either. I also used half butter half EVOO instead of ghee or coconut oil. Not sure if that made a difference. So, frozen did not work for me. I still ate piece around the edges that is fully cooked and it tastes good.
hi Nancy, and yes, you can use frozen berries. I just thawed them out first, and drained away about 3 Tbsp of juice. My cake turned out awesome! Instead of the lemon peel, I used orange. And instead of 2/3 sugar, I used 1/3, and 4 scoops of pure monk fruit powder. I’m on alow carb diet, so no crumb toppong or glaze either. But it tastes so good! Much luck, peace, n love…😊❤✌💚🕊
This looks wonderful and flavors of blueberry, lemons and almond….well, let’s just say my mouth is watering! Can frozen blueberries be substituted? If so, do I need to make adjustments for them being frozen?
So delicious!
I’m planning to make this soon for a party. As others have asked, I’m also wondering if frozen blueberries can be used and if so any adjustments need to be made to the recipe?
This looks AMAZING! Can this be frozen?
Just made this and it was delicious. Other than having to remember to take eggs out of the fridge for a while before I started, it was pretty simple. I did skip the glaze for time sake, I’m sure it would be wonderful, but definitely not needed. My husband has added this to his top favorite recipes of sweet things I’ve made him. Thanks so much for sharing your secrets!
So not sure what happened or if you have a thought but it never firmed up. Used exact ingredients as written and blueberries were fresh so no extra water there but it had no real cake texture and was soggy. Thoughts?
I’m here for the same reason- I’m extending the baking time now because it looks quite wobbly in the middle still.
I actually am having the same not-firming-up issue and just double checked the ingredients and I did exactly as it says. Mine is in the oven now with a lid on it for 15 min over the bake time. It is almost done now!
I am noticing her other coffee cake recipes have arrowroot in them and this one does not…hmmm.
Me too! I’ve made this twice now because I thought I did something wrong the first time. But super soggy/gooey. It tastes amazing and my family likes it, but I can’t make it for company as soggy as this! Any thoughts??
Keeping this recipe; it is incredible! Perfect flavor, so moist. I used fresh blueberries and lemons. I also used Maple Sugar. I used Red Mill Almond Flour and didn’t have any problems. Highly recommend making this one.
Yum Yum Yum!!! Added some chopped pecans to the topping. So good. Trying it today with strawberries from the garden and blueberries. Thank you for this keeper!
This is the second almond flour recipe I’ve baked and it hasn’t worked out!! Baked the cake for 32 min and let it cool in the pan for 15 and it’s still completely wet and soggy in the middle 🙁 not sure what I’m doing wrong. Any ideas? Would tapioca starch or coconut flour help?
Almond flour can be measured out in two ways, one you are actually supposed to spoon it into the measuring cups, but sometimes people put the measuring cup in the bag and scoop it out. It’s harder to know because a lot of recipes don’t really mention this, so it can make your cake turn out in different ways. I cook with almost flour all the time and don’t usually have the issue of the soggy cake, but my cake also turned out really soggy and the topping melted. So I thing the ratios might be off. To much butter, to flour. Next time I try this I’m going to scoop out the flour from the bag so it’s more dense it might work better. But also the topping I think has too much butter and it’s melted into the cake and the cake seems greasy.
This season DELICIOUS. I did make the following substitutions:
1. Used maple syrup instead of maple sugar for the batter (used 0.5 cup of maple syrup)
2. I left out the glaze
3. I used 3 Larabars (Cashew bar) that I crumbled instead of the crumble
It tasted AMAZING. Thank you for the recipe
THIS. IS. AMAZING. Thank you, Michele for another incredible recipe! I did make a couple modifications, I used brown sugar instead of maple, (didn’t have any) and I omitted the glaze. Also, I noticed some commenters said it was too gooey. I left it in for five extra minutes with the oven off, and it came out perfectly moist, not gooey at all. I was in a hurry, and forgot to refrigerate the crumble, so it wasn’t very crumbly, but when it came out of the oven! It looked like goodness in a pan. I am definitely making again, maybe with apples and cinnamon instead of blueberries and lemon.
Keeper! Family scarfed it down.
Made this and it was delicious!!! So moist my family couldn’t believe it was paleo 😄
OMG! We absolutely love it! I didn’t have any almond flavoring so, just skipped it. It’s a bit tangy and sweet and Very moist. It took me twice the time in the oven though. I’ll be making it again – soon.
Instead of maple sugar I put 5 T of maple syrup and instead of topping, to keep calories down, I covered with slivered almonds and then the icing. It is really heavenly, definitely a keeper.
I feel totally ripped off my this recipe. A lot of expensive ingredients, followed the recipe to a T, and its black on the outside and pudding on the inside. It’s been cooking for an additional 20 minutes and it looks like fluffy soup.
Mine backed for 35 and is runny. The batter wasn’t very thick either
Like many other comments, I’m super frustrated and disappointed. Followed the recipe exactly and it never baked. Ended up wasting time and unbelievably expensive ingredients that we purchase with lots of sacrifice to give the best to our family. The coffee cake was in the oven for over an hour and a half and I ended up with burnt crumb topping and raw cake batter. So frustrated and sad.
Absolutely delicious. Very light and moist. Will definitely make again
Baked for 32 minutes and it’s still soupy in the middle. Had to add 15 more minutes to the bake time for it to set. Delicious though!
Love, love, love this! So fragrant, easy to make and oh so yummy! Thank you for the hard work you do, I don’t know what I would do without you and your recipes!👏👏🤙🤙💜💜💜💜💜
I loved the flavor of this. I had to bake it a lot longer that the recipe stated and it was very wet. I’ll definitely try it again.
Does paleo running mana not EVER answer issues discussed in comments? I, for one, am NOT going to waste my time or expensive ingredients to find that it turned out with a soupy, wet center..It seemed about a 50/50 chance based on comnents..I was looking for feed back to see how to resolve it…NOTHING! oh well…it sounded good but dont have time to try. 🙁
These were AMAZING! I did have to leave it in about 5 minutes longer, next time I’ll turn the own off and let it sit another 5. The center was a little soft, but still cut-able and pick-up-able. Give it a shake before you take it out of the oven, if it wobbles, it’s not ready yet. I would also probably cut back on the sugar by half bc I alone ate half the pan in one day. I don’t need that much sugar lol. Delish!
Cannot wait to try this recipe.
My thoughts though, I was thinking of cooking it in ramekins? Do you think they would stil turn out well?
I made this without blueberries. Didn’t have time to grab it at the store. It was phenomenal! Not one piece left after the party. I came back to this recipe so I could make it again but was curious about the reviews for this recipe. I was surprised to read about this recipe being unsuccessful for some. Can’t help but wonder if it’s the blueberries that caused problems for some?
Can this be made the day before serving? I have
GF houseguests coming and hope to prepare/bake as much as I can before they arrive.