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.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
I think I might be a bit of a weirdo when it comes to spring and summer fruits…
Nine times out of ten, I’d prefer to eat fruit raw. As close to off the vine / bush / tree as possible. I want that unadulterated naturally sweet goodness because most fruit is so perfect as it is.
That’s actually why I don’t bake with fruit too often. I just want to eat it up and there’s never enough left to make it into a recipe! However, I had an absolute surplus of blueberries recently that I couldn’t possibly consume before they went bad so I just had to bake them up into something delish.
I was recently reminded of just how delightful the lemon & blueberry flavor combination is so I decided to see if I could create a near-perfect recipe for Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes. I’m SO excited with what I was able to come up with.
I’ve tried this recipe with both regular milk and buttercream, and the buttercream really does make a difference. It’s worth making the trip to the store! You can learn more about the magic of buttermilk here.
I’ve also used 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.
For the gourmet swirled frosting, I simply made one batch of buttercream and added fresh blueberry puree to one half. So easy, but so impressive! I used the Ateco #846 which is a large closed star piping tip.
Be sure to check out my full video tutorial on how to achieve beautiful swirled cupcake frosting here. And if you have any questions about perfecting, customizing, serving, or storing your buttercream, check out this free guide:
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
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
- 3/4 cup (115 grams) fresh or frozen blueberries
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
For the buttercream::
- 3/4 cup (115 grams) fresh or frozen blueberries (thawed 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, for 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.
- 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. On medium-low speed add the egg and yolk and beat until combined. 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 2 tablespoons of flour. Add into the batter and fold with a spatula until combined. Be very careful not to overmix, 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 the 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. If desired, add a few drops of purple food coloring to enhance the blueberry color.
- 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.
First time making cupcakes and wanted to try this recipe. It was easy to follow, and the cupcakes came out really tasty! My frosting was a little too buttery for my taste, but still! Really good cupcakes.
how do you store cupcakes
Hi Yvonne! As it states at the bottom of the recipe, “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.” Happy baking!
Very lovely and easy. I’m not a baker, and they came out perfectly. I didn’t have enough powdered sugar, so my frosting only had two cups. It was ideal sweetness for my family. It was my first time piping, and I kind of impressed myself (thanks to this recipe, of course).
So excited you loved these cupcakes, Leah! We hope to see you trying out other Handle the Heat recipes as you expand your baking repertoire! 🙂
Lord help me, these cupcakes are amazing! So yummy and light. Not to sweet, a little tang and a burst of fresh blueberry. So good! I did add a little bit of lemon juice to the plain half of the buttercream, instead of adding the heavy cream. I could eat a dozen by myself.
Can I make this buttercream a day before?
Sure! Store in an air-tight container in the fridge, then bring to room temperature prior to re-whipping and piping onto the cupcakes. Let us know what you think of this recipe! 🙂
Do you typically use light brown sugar or dark brown sugar for this recipe?
Hi Krystina! We used light brown sugar 🙂
Absolutely wonderful. Just wondering if you have any tips for converting this into a whole cake? It was so good I’m going to make it a 3 tier cake for my kid’s birthday party.
Happy to hear it! I have an article all about converting cake into cupcakes and vice versa that I just published last month 🙂
I made these for my mom’s 52nd birthday!
They were delicious and so pretty! Everyone loved them!
They were easy to make and everything came together perfectly!
Thank you for this recipe!!
I’m so glad to hear this!
Turned out great! Very pretty, very tasty. Thanks for the recipe Tessa!
Sadly – it didn’t work terribly well for me… and I was stunned as I think this was the first semi fail
that I’ve ever had 🙁 And of course it HAD to be for my husbands birthday :((
I was very excited to try this one. Followed the recipe to the letter. The cupcakes faired pretty well
although I too found them a bit dense… despite baking them according to the toothpick test.. I think
they may have needed a bit more time.
My BIG problem came with the butter cream icing. It kept separating… or curdling ? I looked
on line and the suggestion was to mix it longer.. but things didn’t improve. And as I used
frozen blueberries.. ( defrosted of course) .. there wasn’t much liquid and so the butter
cream was far too thick, I had to add more whipping cream to loosen the mixture up..
but it never produced a nice fluffy spreadable icing as featured in the image. I would
make the cupcakes again but would definitely go with a different icing… SO much butter yikes !!
Thank you for the recipe nonetheless !
Even with making substitutions for my gluten/ dairy free family, these cupcakes were still absolutely delicious.
So happy to hear that, Carol!
I really liked these cupcakes but I found that when I used fresh blueberry purée for the buttercream it came out so thin. I had to add at least two extra cups of powdered sugar to thicken it up.
I made a second batch and used blueberry jam instead and it came out much better. I didn’t have to add any powdered sugar and the blueberry flavor was great.