Lemon Sour Cream Cake with Blueberries
The scent and flavour of lemon is universally loved. Lemon is delicious with sugar and delicious with salt but it also has the magical ability of intensifying and enhancing dull and lifeless flavours.
There are always lemons in my fruit bowl, I never tire of their enervating zing. Both the juice and the zest have a million everyday uses, but I especially love food where lemony flavour reigns supreme.
My original recipe for lemon sour cream cake came from the Australian Women’s Weekly Cakes and Slices Cookbook C1980. I’ve made it a gazillion times in the past 35 years, in fact, it’s probably the most forgiving and adaptable cake recipe I make. I’ve varied the citrus flavour, added choc chips and nuts, reduced the sugar, altered the volume and experimented with gluten free, but it the end I always come back to a simple lemon formula.
Baking without wheat flour however poses a few problems with a simple pound cake recipe because the gluten gives structure to the butter-sugar-egg-cream ingredients. In this recipe, my substitution of polenta, ground almonds and white spelt flour works extra well. Not only does it give the cake batter enough strength to hold the blueberries, it doesn’t compromise the palate pleasing texture.
This cake not overly sweet, it’s moist without being wet and it cuts and eats cleanly, making it the perfect cake for picnics and lunch boxes.
Lemon Sour Cream Cake with Blueberries
180g butter
200g castor sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
4 eggs
120g white spelt flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
100g ground almonds
80g instant polenta
150g sour cream
3/4 cup frozen blueberries
2 tablespoons of flaked almonds
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a large loaf tin or 20cm round cake pan and line it with baking paper.
Cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and creamy, then beat in the eggs one at a time.
Use a whisk to combine the dry ingredients and break up any lumps.
Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture then add the sour cream and thoroughly combine.
Spoon 1/3 of the batter into the base of the cake tin spreading it to the edges of the pan. Scatter over half the blueberries.
Add a second layer of batter, then the remaining berries. Top with the remaining cake batter.
Scatter the almond flakes over the surface of the cake.
Bake in the middle of the oven until the centre of the cake is cooked through when tested with a skewer, 40-50 minutes.
Remove the cake from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
This cake will stay fresh for up to one week in an airtight container.
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20 comments on “Lemon Sour Cream Cake with Blueberries”
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Please Pass the Recipe by Sandra Gay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Please Pass the Recipe 
Reblogged this on Chef Ceaser.
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Love, love, love lemons… and what a gorgeous recipe!
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Thanks Liz. The cake recipe has been kicking around for years. It takes adjustments in it’s stride really well so has been subject to much use and abuse
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Blueberries and lemons are one if my favorite combinations. Recipes like this is why we go blueberry picking! I love the combination of polenta and spelt.
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Thanks Gretchen, there are some flavours that just work together don’t you think, lemons and blueberries are just meant to be
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This is absolutely my kind of cake, Sandra! 🙂
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Glad you like it Linda, it’s always a big bit here too…
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mine too Linda, it was delicious
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Love the combo of flours used – and the cake looks so good.
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Thanks Francesc, a this recipe has been much used and abused, but the cake is always delicious
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Love, love, love the combo of lemon with blueberries. I’m amazed by your use of polenta and spelt flour. Their helping to keep the blueberries suspended in the crumb is, for me, a very nice surprise.
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Aren’t blueberries and lemons are fabulous together John. I hadn’t thought about the polenta and spelt helping to suspend the berries, you’re probably right
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Lemons really are such an amazing fruit, being so adaptable in their uses. This combination of flavours must really make the palate sing – would love a slice right now! 🙂
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Thanks Margot, sadly the cake’s all gone..
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What a lovely looking cake. I like the our cream and fruit mix. Lovely picture, as always.
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Thanks Conor, it’s a lovely moist cake..
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Just beautiful Mrs R. Adore the lemon and blueberry combo. The spelt, polenta and almonds are obviously a lovely combo. Yes, had a few flops with pound type gluten free cakes. They usually end up with big holes in the batter.
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GF flour doesn’t always translate flawlessly as you know, that’s why I mix it up, to cover all options. It seems to work..
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I make a version of this, but somehow the blueberries always gather at the bottom of the cake. It reminds me of spring – lemons and berries. I may try your recipe, but will need to wait until I am back in the UK as there is a dearth of blueberries here in Greece. Perhaps the blueberries will magically be equally distributed.
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Chicago John credits the mix of flours for the amazing berry suspension in the cake, he might be right, I have no other explanation..
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