Looking for a fruity sweet treat? This Blackberry Lemon Bread strikes the perfect balance of sweet and tart using fresh fruit and tangy Greek yogurt to bake into moist bread.
Biting into it is like biting into a delicious cake, but one that you can have for breakfast because, well, it’s technically a “bread” and there’s fruit in it, so it’s only natural to pair it with your coffee or tea!
As an environmental scientist, I’m always looking for ways to integrate seasonal ingredients into my recipes. And let me tell you, blackberry season is my favorite!
I absolutely love baking with blackberries (like in this Vegan Blackberry Muffin recipe!) because they provide such a great texture and tart contrast to otherwise sweet desserts.
Blackberries have the perfect amount of tartness to work with the sour lemon to balance out the sweetness in this delicious loaf recipe.
Green tip: Eating seasonally is one of the best ways to support local farms and decrease your carbon footprint. Local foods have less associated transportation costs and fuel emissions. Check when blackberries are in season in your area with this Seasonal Food Guide.
Blackberry Lemon Bread with Glaze Ingredients
Blackberry Lemon Bread Ingredients
Here’s everything you need:
- Blackberries. The vibrant star of your dish.
- Lemon Juice. For tang. You should be able to get enough lemon juice out of 2-3 large lemons.
- Granulated Sugar. For sweetness.
- All-purpose flour. For the base.
- Baking Powder. For rising.
- Salt. For flavor.
- Greek Yogurt. For moisture.
- Eggs. To bind and to help leaven the loaf.
- Coconut Oil. To lock in moisture.
Optional Lemon Glaze Ingredients
Here’s everything you need:
- An extra lemon. You’ll need just about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.
- Powdered sugar. To balance the tartness of the lemon and to thicken the glaze into a nice consistency.
Blackberry Lemon Bread Tips and Tricks
Coat Your Blackberries
I highly recommend slicing your blackberries into 3 or 4 parts before adding them to your mixture. Keeping them whole means they’ll be too heavy for the batter, and sink right to the bottom. It’s better to have them sprinkled throughout.
Toss your sliced blackberries in 1 teaspoon of flour just so they don’t bleed into your bread. I like to keep about 8-10 pieces of blackberry out of the mix so I can place them on top of the bread. It just looks so much more fun!
Green tip: Organic farms rely on biodiversity to generate rich soil, avoiding the use of pesticides and fertilizers, which means no toxic runoff. Consider organic ingredients for this recipe if you can.
How to Get Moist Lemon Blackberry Bread
The secret to a super-moist loaf is using a whisk or hand mixer to stir the Greek yogurt and granulated sugar together. Not only does this make combining all your ingredients together easier, but it also makes a base for a lighter, airier batter.
You’ll want to get the yogurt and sugar nice and smooth, ensuring no lumps, before you start adding the rest of your ingredients.
Green tip: This bread is the perfect coffee accompaniment! Coffee plants require a lot of water to grow, so coffee beans can come with a high eco-footprint.
Make sure your coffee is sustainably sourced by looking for a UTZ certification.
Crack Your Eggs into a Separate Bowl
For this recipe and really any recipe, it’s always best to crack your eggs into a separate bowl.
This just ensures you can identify and remove any little pieces of shell that may accidentally fall into your batter.
It also allows you to avoid the rare but awful bloody egg.
Use Fresh Lemons in this Loaf Cake
Usually, you can get 1/2 cup of juice out of just 2 large lemons, but sometimes it takes up to 3.
Squeeze your lemon juice into a measuring cup to make sure you get a full 1/2 cup. This also means you can remove any seeds that may accidentally fall into the lemon juice and avoid getting any into your Lemon Blackberry Bread.
Allow Your Blackberry Lemon Loaf to Cool Before Glazing
This loaf is super moist! Allow it to cool as much as you can before diving in. As it cools, it sets.
If you opt to add the Lemon Glaze, wait until it cools to add that, too! Otherwise, the hot loaf will sop up your glaze (still delicious, but a little messy)!
Tested Ingredient Substitutions
This recipe calls for Greek Yogurt. Both plain and vanilla flavors work great! You can also opt for dairy-free yogurt! Just make sure it’s not too sweet.
If you want to make this refined-sugar free, use a sugar-free yogurt and substitute coconut sugar for granulated sugar.
Whole wheat flour works in place of all-purpose flour in this recipe but will give you a dryer texture. If you’re using whole wheat flour, I recommend using 1 & 1/4 cups instead of 1 & 1/2 cups.
You can also opt to swap out vegetable oil for coconut oil.
How to Properly Store Your Blackberry Lemon Bread
This bread will keep fresh for about 1 week after baking it. Just make sure to cover it and store it in the fridge. You can also freeze it for up to a month. Just thaw overnight and enjoy within a week of defrosting.
If you have leftover blackberries that you bought for this bread, try using them for this Blackberry Margarita or Mixed Berry Smoothie.
Blackberry Lemon Bread Frequently Asked Questions
How do you keep lemon loaf fresh?
To keep your blackberry lemon loaf fresh, wrap it tightly or store it in an airtight container. At room temperature, it will last 2-3 days. In the refrigerator, it will last a week, and in the freezer, a month.
What is lemon bread made of?
Lemon bread is a basic loaf cake comprised of Greek yogurt, sugar, eggs, oil, lemon juice, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. In this Lemon Blackberry Bread, the addition of blackberries adds extra texture, flavor, and visual interest.
Want to sharpen your kitchen skills?
Why You Should Make This Blackberry Lemon Bread
- It’s balanced. The perfect amount of sweet and tart.
- It’s fresh. The fresh blackberries and lemon juice give it such a fresh taste.
- It’s moist. The Greek yogurt gives this the best consistency.
Loving this Blackberry Lemon Bread and looking for more dessert/breakfast crossovers? Check out this Vegan Blender Banana Bread and these Chocolate Chip Muffins.
Moist Blackberry Lemon Bread with Glaze
PRINT PIN RATEIngredients
- 4 ounces blackberries (plus a couple extra for decorative top!)
- 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour (to coat blackberries)
- 1 cup plain greek yogurt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar (for the top)
- 3 large eggs
- ½ cup oil (vegetable, canola or coconut)
- ½ cup lemon juice (½ cup lemon juice usually = juice of 2-3 lemons)
- 1.5 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Lemon Glaze (optional)
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice (1 tbsp lemon juice usually = juice of ¼ lemon)
- ½ cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and spray or line a 9-inch loaf pan.
- Dice your blackberries and add them to a small bowl. Pour 1 teaspoon of flour on top and toss to coat the blackberries in the flour. Set aside.
- Add Greek yogurt and 1 cup sugar to a large mixing bowl and whisk until combined.
- Next, add your eggs, coconut oil, and lemon juice and whisk again until smooth.
- Add 1.5 cups flour, baking powder, and salt, and give your mixture a final whisk.
- Fold in your flour-coated blackberries and transfer to prepped 9-inch loaf pan. Add an extra sprinkle of sugar and a couple more blackberries on top for gorgeous color and decorative finish!
- Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow your sweet bread to cool before removing from pan and slicing.
Lemon Glaze (optional)
- Add lemon juice and about 1/4 cup of powdered sugar to a large mixing bowl and use a whisk or hand-mixer to combine. Test the consistency. It should drip slowly off of your whisk. If it’s too thin, add more powdered sugar, about 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved.
- Once your blackberry lemon bread is cooled, pour glaze on top and enjoy!
Pro Tips
- If your loaf isn’t cooking in the middle, tent it with aluminum foil and cook it for an extra 5-10 minutes. This will allow the center to cook without burning the top.
- For another moist loaf bread, check out this Chocolate Chip Loaf Cake.
10 thoughts on “Moist Blackberry Lemon Bread with Glaze”
Hi Marley! Thanks for sharing your recipe! I love that you try to follow seasonal ingredients and the combination here with blackberries and lemon are amazing. I followed your recipe as written, and I really struggled to get it to cook all the way through. I do live at a higher altitude, so I had to make a few adjustments for that (a little extra flour and a litter less liquid), but despite that, it took me almost TWICE the cooking time at your suggested 350°F to get it to not be raw inside.
I’m not sure if the flour to liquid ratio was off, or what happened, but I did end up having to loosely cover the top to avoid it burning while I continued the cooking until the knife came out clean. I think it took about 90 mins. total.
The end result is a delicious, almost custard-like loaf that is very dense and moist, but it would be tough to call it a bread. It’s almost closer to a brownie than a bread.
That being said, the flavor is great, but you might double check either the temperature or the liquid to flour ratio, so that there is a more realistic cooking time and consistency. Has anybody else had this same experience?
Hi Carrie!!
Thank you so much for your feedback! I’m so sorry to hear you struggled with your loaf cooking through- I have not had the same issues with the cooking time. My oven does run about 10 degrees hot, so I actually set mine to 340F in order for it to be comparable to most other ovens, and it did cook thoroughly in the allotted time all 4 times I tested it.
I can’t say I have personal experience baking at a higher altitude, but from what I’ve read, the oven temperature may have to be increased by up to 15-25 degrees, so I’m thinking the oven temp may be the culprit here. Check out this article on best practices for baking at a higher altitude for more info. My only other thought would be maybe a difference in the size of the loaf pan. Did you perchance use a different-sized loaf pan that may have had an effect on cooking time? Let me know- that is something I can test and add additional information for future bakers 🙂
Hi Marley,
Thank you for following up with my query. I appreciate your efforts and thoughts. I’ll see if I can come up with something else. I bake cakes frequently at high altitude, but I don’t usually have this issue… at least not to this extent. Maybe it is the high fruit content that is causing the increased baking time/temp?? I’ll work with it and see if I can get it to cook all the way through.
Thanks again,
Carrie
Hey Carrie, I live in Tennessee and had the same problem. I’m on my 5th round of adding 5 minutes. Still not even close to being cooked all the way through.
Hi Sydney! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave your feedback. I’m so sorry you both had this issue. I will do some troubleshooting and see if I can get some answers for you 🙂
Thanks for your feedback, Sydney. I’ll try to increase the temp next time.
Can you make it with almond flour as well to make it more keto friendly.
Hi Audrey!
I have not personally tried this recipe with almond flour, but usually substituting almond flour 1:1 for a/p flour does work, so long as you add a little more of a binder, so that it doesn’t get crumbly. In this case, since there are already 3 eggs, I would recommend adding an extra tablespoon of greek yogurt- that should do the trick! Let me know how it turns out!
This is by far the most delicious cake i have ever eaten. The blueberries and lemon flavor are out of this world! I will be making this cake again!!
I love how you called it a “cake” because it truly tastes as good as one!!! Thank you so much for your support!