Lemon Blueberry Bread is made in 1 bowl with fresh blueberries, lemon zest, and a bright lemon and vanilla glaze. It’s a perfect summer dessert!
The fresh combination of plump blueberries and bright lemon come together to make this delightful Lemon Blueberry Bread. So soft and moist, every bite of the vanilla and lemon-glazed vegan loaf tastes just like summer! I think you’re really going to love this.
This vegan one-bowl sweet bread couldn’t be easier to make. Simply fold the blueberries and lemon into the batter, then sit back while you sip on a mango smoothie and wait for it to bake.
Dressed in a creamy and zesty lemon and vanilla glaze, this vegan lemon blueberry loaf could easily be turned into vegan muffins. The combination is always a refreshing and bright start to your day!
Fresh or frozen blueberries
Both fresh and frozen blueberries can be used in this lemon blueberry bread. If you use fresh berries, look for blueberries that are plump and without any bruises. Blueberries come into season in summer, usually from June until September.
If using frozen berries, rinse them well and pat dry with a paper towel. Toss them in flour before folding them into the dough to prevent them from leaking their color too much or sinking to the bottom.
How to make a lemon blueberry loaf
Once your loaf pan is ready and your oven is preheating, whisk the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the same bowl and stir until just combined. Toss the blueberries in a bit of flour before folding them into the batter.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan before transferring it to a rack to cool completely.
Finish by whisking all of the glaze ingredients in a small bowl. Pour it over the completely cooled lemon blueberry bread and leave it to set before slicing and serving.
Tips and substitutions
- Less sweet – Use just half a cup of sugar for a less sweet bread.
- Non dairy milk – Any non dairy milk will work in this bread!
- Different berries – Substitute the blueberries for fresh or frozen raspberries, blackberries, or strawberries.
- Tossing the berries in flour keeps them suspended in the bread. Don’t skip this part!
- Don’t over mix the dough or your bread will be dense.
Can it be made gluten free?
I haven’t tested this recipe with gluten free flour. If you want to try, use a 1:1 gluten free flour blend instead of all purpose flour.
Storing and freezing
Keep your glazed and cooled lemon blueberry bread at room temperature for a few days. It stays fresh for a bit longer when kept covered in a container in the fridge.
The loaf is freezer friendly but will need to be wrapped well in plastic wrap and foil to avoid freezer burn. It freezes well for up to 3 months.
Looking for more summery vegan desserts?
Lemon Blueberry Bread
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh grated lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons lemon extract, optional
- 1/2 cup melted vegan butter
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries or frozen
- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
Glaze
- 2 tablespoons melted vegan butter
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a standard metal loaf pan (9×5 inches or 8 1/2x 4 1/2). You can also line the pan with parchment paper for easy removal, but I like the golden edges it gets without lining it.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the soy milk, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, lemon extract (if using), melted vegan butter and vanilla until well combined.
- To the bowl with the wet ingredients, add the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir until just combined, being careful not to over mix or your bread will be dense.
- Rinse the blueberries, then toss them with the flour in a small bowl. This will help them not sink to the bottom of the pan while baking.
- Fold the blueberries into the batter, gently.
- Pour into the prepared pan, place in the center rack of the oven and bake for 60-75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean with no wet batter.
- Cool in the pan for about 30 minutes, then carefully remove from the pan and transfer to a cooling rack with parchment paper below (to catch the glaze drippings).
- Glaze: In a small bowl, whisk together the melted vegan butter, powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla until smooth. Pour over the loaf and allow to set for 20-30 minutes if possible. Slice and serve.
Video
Notes
- I haven’t tested this with gluten free flour, so I’m not sure if it will work or not. Use a quality gluten free all purpose mix for best results.
- You could go down to probably ½ cup sugar for a less sweet bread.
- You can use any non-dairy milk you like place of the soy milk.
- This would also work well with raspberries or even chopped strawberries.
If I wanted to use muffin pan instead, I’d the bake time the same? Thanks!
No, muffins will take less time, around 20 minutes.
I haven’t made it yet. My great niece is allergic to sugar. I’m wondering if I can replace sugar with applesauce or maple syrup?
I’ve never tried anything other than sugar so I’m not sure. If using a liquid sweetener, you’d have to adjust and use less liquid somewhere else.
Absolutely delicious! Thank you Nora; I love this recipe. I changed it slightly… instead of the lemon glaze, I poked holes in the top of the bread while still warm and spooned lemon syrup over it (equal parts lemon juice and sugar). YUM!
You bet, Barbara! I love your idea! Thanks for sharing your yummy feedback and awesome review! I’m thrilled you love the recipe! Wishing you happy cooking!
Hi Nora – I’m planning to make a blueberry coffee cake for my 2yo’s birthday and will stack probably 3-8″ rounds and frost it so it looks like a bday cake. Would you suggest using this recipe (which I LOVE) or the blueberry cake recipe (intended to be.. a cake!)? I was worried the cake recipe might not stack well for a taller cake to serve a lot of people at brunch time and maybe this denser option would. I do quite a bit of baking so will chill the layers, dowel it, and frost cold so it all holds together. Thanks!
I think this recipe will work well, though I’ve never tried it myself. The blueberry one is also fine, but it’s more of a taller 1 layer cake, so you’d have to make some adjustments either way.
This was wonderful and I loved how the lemon gently flavored and fragranced the bread. Definitely adding this to my regular rotation of go-to recipes. Thank you!
You’re welcome, Taylor! I love that this recipe is being added to your favorites! Thanks for you wonderful review and feedback! Happy cooking!
Hi Nora. I really enjoy your awesome recipes and have been baking with them for more then year for sure
Recently I like past 4 to 5 months the same recipe. Same oven etc but the cakes become very wet after baking and cooling
I tried baking extra time. So if there any suggestion or reason that this is happening I would greatly appreciate your valuable input
Thank you for wonderful recipes for all of us to enjoy
Tj
I made this with gluten free flour and it was AMAZING!!! I couldn’t believe how light and fluffy it was, not dense at all which sometimes happens with GF flour. Making it again this weekend for a family party!
Hi Megan. I’m glad you loved the bread! Thanks for sharing your fabulous review and feedback!
Hi Nora,
I love your recipes. a friend shared your cornbread recipe with me years ago and you’ve been a go-to for vegan baking since.
I’m wondering if using vegetable oil as a substitute for the vegan butter would be ok? and for the glaze as well?
thank you!
That’s great to hear, Aileen, thanks for loving my recipes! Yes, I think you could use vegetable oil in the bread, though it will miss that buttery flavor. I would probably skip it for the glaze, and just use a little plant milk as needed to thin it. You don’t really need butter or oil in that necessarily. Hope that helps!
This is one of the best recipes ever! My family absolutely LOVED it! I will be making it again this weekend!
Hi!!! My batter was upset thick! Did I over mix? I put it in the oven regardless! I assume it will be more dense!
Hopefully it turned out okay, I’m not sure why your batter was so thick. I’d recheck your measurements and make sure everything was accurate and that you didn’t forget an ingredient.
Can anyone attest to using gluten-free flour? I saw on the notes that This hasn’t been officially tested with it.
I have tried this recipe first with all-purpose flour, and now have also successfully made it with Cassava flour. Still equally delicious & GF! Hope this helps
Hi Brittany. Thanks for sharing your baking experience! I appreciate your wonderful review! Happy cooking!
Hi, this looks great! You mentioned in the comments on another recipe that one could omit the lemon from this if one wanted more of a classic blueberry muffin flavor. If I do that, would I need to add something acidic to the plant milk? Or is the lemon juice just for flavor and not for chemical reaction?
I’m also with this interested in substituting whole wheat flour, and wondering if it would be better to use whole wheat pastry flour or whole wheat all-purpose if I try this.
Thank you!
It actually works fine without the acid, so you can just leave it out. Or add just the lemon juice for a little brightness in the bread, without much lemon flavor. Whole wheat pastry flour is lovely and lighter than regular whole wheat, and is my choice for whole wheat flour in baking. Thanks!
Thank you! I omitted the lemon, used whole wheat pastry flour, and sprinkled sugar on top instead of glazing. It came out just like blueberry muffins from a bakery in loaf form. Absolutely perfect! I used half a cup of sugar, and I think that was just right.
I’m going to use this recipe when I make brunch for 25-30 people, so I have a couple more questions for scaling.
1. Do you think it would it bake as well in a wide cake pan instead of a loaf pan?
2. Should I expect any trouble stirring a very large batch of this batter? Wondering because it was clearly very delicate and important to mix gently.
I really appreciate your recipes and your willingness to discuss options for them!
I’ll also share one almost-mishap I had… I found the vegan butter was running low so I substituted coconut oil, figuring it was the closest in texture. But when I added it to the oat milk that had been refrigerated, it lumped up like crazy. Fortunately I was using a steel bowl and have an induction burner, so I just warmed it on the lowest setting till the lumps went away.
Hi Rebecca! I’m so glad you enjoyed the lemon blueberry bread. I do think this recipe would work well in a larger pan. You would have to adjust baking times depending on the pan and how much batter, etc. but it should work. If you double the recipe, I think stirring it should be fine, just be quite gentle and don’t over mix. If you are making more than that, I might split it up and make half the batter, then the other half. But I’m not sure, I don’t have experience making huge amounts of cake/muffin batter at once. 🙂 Coconut oil will do that when mixed with cold mix, so if you use it just warm the milk first, then it won’t harden while you’re mixing. Thanks so much!
Hi Nora! I’m wondering if I can substitute the melted butter with a neutral tasting oil? I was thinking avocado but let me know if that would change the texture!
Thanks for the yummy recipe!
You could, yes. It will change it a bit but not much, and it should still be very good!
Are you sure it’s only 2 tablespoons of flour?
There are 2 cups of flour listed for the bread; the 2 tbs flour is for tossing the blueberries with. It helps them not to sink when baking. Hope that clears things up!
Hi Nora, This is such a perfect summer dessert! Even my non-vegan friends love it. It works well both with fresh and frozen berries.
I use canola oil instead of vegan butter. I make the glaze by mixing icing sugar with lemon juice and sometimes add limoncello.
Thank you, again, for sharing your wonderful review and baking experience, Kate! I appreciate you using my recipes! Happy cooking!
Hi Nora,
I love all the recipes of yours that I’ve tried and I’m very excited to try this one. I have everything all ready to go but I’m wondering if substituting coconut sugar for the granulated sugar will work?
Thank you!
Thank you, I’m glad to hear it! Yes, that will work, but the bread will probably be a brownish color.
Would this recipe work if I substituted coconut sugar instead of using granulated?
It will!
Another great recipe! Thanks, Nora!
You bet! Thank you for your wonderful review!
Just put another batch of this bread into the oven. It has become a tried-and-true summer treat over the past few years, and each time I make it I am reminded of how user-friendly and versatile your recipes always are, Nora.
The recipe is perfect as it is written. But I do find that using a half cup of sugar is plenty sweet for me, so for anyone worried about cutting the sugar in half- I promise it is still yummy! Obviously it is best with fresh summer blueberries, but I’ve made it around the holiday season with frozen berries and gotten rave reviews. I have also used almond extract (or a combination of almond and vanilla) with equally tasty results. It is also great with some sliced almonds added to the top about halfway through baking as well!
Yum! Now I just have to decide if I will share this warm loaf or keep it all for myself! 😉
Hi Rachel. I appreciate your wonderful ideas of how you love the bread recipe! Thanks for your fabulous feedback! I’m so delighted you find my recipes user friend and delicious!