Easy Blueberry Jam Cake
A bright and fruity blueberry cake made extra easy by using jam from your pantry! This cake has a soft, tender crumb and a light, moist texture that feels fresh rather than rich. It also happens to be vegan! Try this with any flavour of jam.
Servings: 8 servings
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour (135g)
- 6 tbsp powdered sugar (47g)
- 2 tbsp freeze-dried blueberry powder, optional* (12g)
- ½ tsp baking soda (2.5g)
- ¼ tsp salt (1.25g)
- 2 tsp lemon zest (10g)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice (15g)
- ¼ cup vegetable oil (50g)
- 3 ½ tbsp blueberry jam (78g)
- 1 tsp blueberry extract, optional* (4g)
- ¼ tsp almond extract (1g)
- 6 tbsp water, hot (90g)
- 2 drops blue and red food colouring, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉. Line and prepare a 6" cake pan or cupcake tins.
- Whisk together dry ingredients: flour, powdered sugar, blueberry powder, baking soda and salt.
- Combine wet ingredients: lemon zest, jam, oil, lemon juice, extracts, water and food colouring if using. Tip: combine jam and wet ingredients with a blender until smooth to save on time and dishes. I use an emulsion blender for a couple seconds.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Gently fold together with a spatula, or mix on low speed with an electric or stand mixer until just combined. Batter will be smooth but will start getting foamy quickly, so don't let it sit in the mixing bowl very long. (Note: if you must wait, let the batter sit in the pan before baking, not the mixing bowl.)
- Pour batter into prepared pans, and bake at 350°F. A 6" cake bakes for 25-35 minutes; cupcakes bake for 20-24 minutes; mini-cupcakes bake for 12-18 minutes. Bake until tops spring back when gently pressed, a skewer comes out clean, or internal temperature is between 195-200℉
- Cool in pans for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.
- Serve on its own as a snack cake, or top with melted chocolate, whipped cream, or lemon drizzle. You can also double the recipe then frost and fill with your favorite buttercream to make it a celebration cake!
Notes
No blueberry extract? Replace it with 1 tsp of vanilla extract. Or use a full 1¼ tsp almond extract, which enhances the sweet-fruity notes of the cake. A full 1¼ tsp vanilla extract can also be used if you want to avoid almond extract altogether.
No freeze-dried blueberry powder? Replace it with an additional 12g (1½ tbsp) all-purpose flour, for a total 147g flour in the recipe. The cake will be slightly less intensely blueberry-flavoured but will still bake beautifully.
Make a different fruit flavour? Replace the blueberry jam, freeze-dried blueberry powder, and blueberry extract with any type of fruit jam, powder, or extract. This works very well with strawberry jam, raspberry jam, peach jam, or bumbleberry jam!