Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Absolutely bursting with fresh, fruity, and tangy flavors!
Texture: The cupcakes are perfectly tender and moist, with juicy blueberries studded throughout. Then the buttercream is ultra rich, smooth, and creamy. Heaven!
Ease: Just follow the recipe as I’ve written it and you’ll have beautiful cupcakes perfect for summer in no time!
Pros: So pretty, flavorful, and doable.
Cons: None!
Would I make this again? Absolutely.
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These Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes are the perfect bright, fresh treat for spring or summertime celebrations.
I was recently reminded just how delightful the lemon & blueberry flavor combination is, so I was inspired to create a recipe for Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes. I’m SO excited with what I was able to come up with.
This recipe uses a small amount of brown sugar in addition to the standard granulated sugar and an extra egg yolk. These tweaks ensure the cupcakes are as moist and flavorful as possible, while being tender yet sturdy enough to handle a generous amount of buttercream frosting.
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Finish it all off with a stunning swirl of buttercream frosting, and you have yourself a treat that’s perfect for Easter, Mother’s Day, or any springtime or summertime party!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes
How to Make MOIST Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes
- Measure your flour correctly. I highly recommend using a digital kitchen scale for the most accurate way to measure your ingredients. If you don’t have one, use the ‘spoon and level’ method to prevent adding too much flour to your cupcake batter, as this will make your Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes dry and tough. Learn more about how to measure correctly here.
- Don’t reduce the sugar in this recipe. Sugar actually helps contribute to moistness, structure, and more! Learn more about the role sugar plays in baking here.
- Use real buttermilk. More on this just below.
Do I Have to Use Real Buttermilk?
I’ve tried this recipe with both regular milk and buttercream, and the buttercream really does make a difference. It’s worth making a trip to the store! Real buttermilk brings a beautiful tang and helps produce a moist, tall, light cupcake. DIY substitutions simply can’t provide the same benefits. You can learn more about the magic of buttermilk here.
What is the Best Cupcake Pan for Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes?
I love my Wilton cupcake pan here for all cupcakes. I have not tried these Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes as mini cupcakes.
How to Prevent Cupcakes from Sticking to the Liner
Use high-quality liners. These cupcake liners are my favorite, as cupcakes don’t stick to them. Check out my article on how to prevent cupcake liners from sticking here if this is a common problem for you.
How to Frost Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes
- For the gourmet swirled frosting, we’re going to make one batch of buttercream and add fresh blueberry puree to one half. So easy, but so impressive!
- I used the Ateco #846 piping tip, which is a large closed star piping tip, but you can use any piping tip you prefer.
- If you wish to enhance the color of your frosting, I highly recommend using a purple gel food coloring like this one. Liquid food coloring adds too much liquid to the frosting, making it thinner and more difficult to pipe.
- Check out my full tutorial on how to achieve beautiful swirled cupcake frosting here.
How to Store Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes
Serve or store at room temperature for up to 1 day, or in the fridge for up to 3 days. Let come to room temperature before serving.
More Recipes You’ll Love:
Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
- 1 3/4 cups (222 grams) all-purpose flour, measured correctly
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) lightly packed brown sugar
- 1 large egg plus one egg yolk, at room temperature
- 1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 3/4 cup (115 grams) fresh or frozen blueberries
- 2 tablespoons (16 grams) all-purpose flour
For the buttercream:
- 3/4 cup (115 grams) fresh or frozen blueberries (thawed and drained if frozen)
- 3 cups (306 grams) powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 to 2 tablespoons heavy or whipping cream
- Lemon zest, to garnish
Instructions
Make the cupcakes:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two standard muffin tins with 15 paper liners.
- In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium-high speed to beat the butter and sugars until fluffy and very well combined, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl. On medium-low speed, add the egg and yolk and beat until combined, scraping down the bowl as needed. Combine the buttermilk, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Add in the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture in alternating batches, starting and ending with the flour, mixing until just combined.
- In a small bowl, toss the blueberries with the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. Add into the batter and fold with a spatula until combined. Be very careful not to overmix, as that will create dense and gummy cupcakes.
- Divide the batter among the prepared muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the buttercream:
- Using a blender, immersion blender, or food processor, puree the blueberries. Pass the pureed blueberries through a fine mesh strainer and into a medium bowl to remove the skins. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase the speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes. Add the salt and vanilla and beat on medium for 1 minute.
- Remove half of the buttercream to a bowl and add the blueberry puree gradually until the buttercream is well-colored and flavored but not too thin. If the buttercream does get too thin, add more powdered sugar to thicken.*
- To the plain buttercream, add the cream and beat until well combined.
Swirled Piping:
- In a large piping bag fitted with a decorative tip (such as the Ateco #846), use a spoon to scoop the plain frosting into one section of the bag, using your finger on the outside of the bag to help scrape it off. Repeat with the blueberry frosting. Ensure you’re aligning the frosting so it starts at the same place in the bag. Don’t worry if the colors touch each other.
- Squeeze the bag to slightly blur the colors together for a watercolor type effect. Twist the bag and squeeze out a test pipe to ensure the colors are coming out evenly before piping onto your cupcakes. Garnish frosted cupcakes with lemon zest.
- Serve or store at room temperature for up to 1 day, or in the fridge for up to 3 days. Let come to room temperature before serving.
Recipe Notes
This post was originally published in 2016 and has been updated with additional baking tips.
I was wondering if there was a more concise measurement for the lemons as well. I made these once and it tasted great but were abit dense
Hi Tessa-
I was wondering if you have tried this recipe with oil instead of butter? Also, what would be the conversion if wanting to replace the butter with oil?
Lemon and blueberry, 2 of my fave flavors! I made these but they turned out dense (my son thought they tasted like the lemon shortbread cookies I make), not light & fluffy. My lemons were really large and I had a lot of juice. Wondering if there is a more concise measurement on how much fresh lemon juice to use?
Thank u very much for all your recipes, I love them. You are just great. I love the way you cook. Thank you Tessa. I love you. lol.
Hi Tessa,
Just tried this recipe and it did not turn out as expected. The cupcakes didn’t rise and they had a wet, kind of gummy texture. They also didn’t have much flavor. I’m wondering where I went wrong because they sounded delicious and yours look so appetizing!
Hi Leah, is your baking soda and baking powder both still fresh and active? Here’s how you can check:
Baking Soda: Place 1/4 teaspoon in a bowl and pour 1 teaspoon distilled vinegar on top. If it bubbles up, it is fresh. If nothing happens, throw away.
Baking powder: Place 1 teaspoon in a bowl with 1 cup hot tap water. If it bubbles up, it is fresh. If nothing happens, throw away.
Awesome cupcake recipe, checked it out & the work place loved them. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Frosting – after adding the blueberry puree, mine required an additional 2+ cups of powdered sugar to thicken it enough. Used the exact amount listed so would start with adding a little puree.
So glad to hear that, Kelli! Thanks for your note about the powdered sugar 🙂
Thanks for updating the recipe. I’m going to try this recipe out this weekend.
When do you add the dry ingredients? I couldn’t find it in the instructions. Do you add it alternately with the wet ingredients or after the wet ingredients?
This is awesome
I LOVE to buy fruit in bulk so that I can get the best of both worlds! I’ll eat them fresh and then whatever’s leftover I’ll use in a recipe 😀
Good idea!! Now if only we had enough room in our fridge 😉 😉
Love the frosting on these! What a clever idea for a seriously impressive finish 🙂
Thank you, Rachel!
Oh my!! I can’t wait to try this recipe out! They look like the perfect summer treat!
Gemma
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