Homemade Blueberry (Muffin!) Bread
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This homemade blueberry loaf is moist, gooey and perfect for those summer blueberries. Just like a delicious blueberry muffin, but this batter goes from the bowl to the pan even faster to make this quick bread. Slice up a delicious piece of this blueberry bread for breakfast, a snack or served with whipped cream as a dessert!
Sometimes you want a blueberry muffin, but you just want to throw it together faster. This juicy and delicious blueberry bread recipe is at it’s core, a giant sliceable blueberry muffin.
This recipe always saves the day. The prep itself is pretty fast, as you don’t have to spend the time to portion out the batter into muffin tins.
A loaf style bread like this one does take longer to bake than muffins, but you can’t beat a recipe like this for hands-off time! You should also try this strawberry bread with sweet cream glaze, or my lemon zucchini loaf cake with sweet glaze, delicious!
Table of Contents
What is Blueberry Bread?
Blueberry Bread is what’s called a quick bread. It’s made with baking powder as the leavening agent (What makes the loaf rise). You essentially can mix up the batter, add it to the loaf pan, and have a delicious blueberry bread without having to work with yeast.
The crumb on this blueberry bread is much more like a muffin or cake than yeast bread. Expect it to be buttery, slightly sweet, and full of great blueberry flavor.
Why Do I Need To Cream The Butter And Sugar?
Creaming softened butter into the sugar helps produce a silky cake-like texture for your bread. You want the butter to be softened on the counter for about 10 minutes.
How Do I Soften Butter Faster?
One trick for softening butter faster is to grate it on a cheese grater, and then add that butter to your sugar. Grating it softens it fast without melting it too much.
Don’t let the butter sit on the counter if you are trying to grate it, it may end up a gooey mess. Either be patient and let it soften on the counter or grate cold, rock hard butter!
Some people freeze their butter and then grate it as they need it. Grating frozen butter is even easier than grating cold butter.
If you like this recipe, you’ll love some of our great muffin recipes like our Banana Applesauce Chocolate Chip Muffins, One Bowl Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins and Mini Cornbread Muffins.
What Kind Of Pan Should I Use?
I use a metal 9×5 loaf pan when making this blueberry bread recipe.
If you choose to use a glass loaf pan, the bread may take a little longer to cook. Glass takes a little longer to heat up then a metal pan does. The edges of your load may also be a little softer in a glass pan.
How Can I Keep The Blueberry Loaf From Getting Stuck In The Pan?
Cutting a piece of parchment paper the size of your loaf pan makes it easy to lift your bread out of the pan. I cut mine so it covers both the bottom and two of the sides like a sling. The remaining two sides of the pan spritz with a little oil to help with easy release.
Their are some baking sprays that have flour already inside. I like the Wilton baking spray, it’s great for keeping all baked goods (muffins, cakes, etc.) from sticking.
If you don’t have parchment paper or baking spray, you can use the oil and flour method on your pan.
- Lightly and evenly coat all of the sides of the pan in oil.
- Add a few teaspoons of flour to your pan and cover in plastic wrap tightly.
- Gently shake your pan until all sides have a light dusting of flour.
- Add batter to your pan!
Love Blueberries? This Blueberry French Toast Casserole is so easy, and can be made the night before. Or try these Easy Blueberry Galettes (Pies!) with your fresh blueberries too! They are super fast, and way easier than they look. Or make my Sweet Blueberry Biscuits, bursting with blueberries and topped with a sweet vanilla glaze for a perfect breakfast treat.
How Do I Keep The Blueberries From Sinking To The Bottom Of The Loaf?
This blueberry bread uses two techniques to keep the blueberries from sinking.
First adding a teaspoon of flour to the bowl of blueberries before adding them to the batter helps to dry off the outsides, which can help keep the blueberries from sinking to the bottom.
Next only mix half the blueberries into the batter, then add the batter to the pan. The remaining half of the blueberries are sprinkled on top of the batter in the pan and swirled in.
This helps to make sure your blueberries are mixed evenly into the batter. I’ve always used both techniques and the few times I didn’t my blueberries sank to the bottom.
Can I Use Frozen Blueberries?
Yes, you can use fresh or frozen blueberries in this recipe, but a few things change. I find fresh blueberries tend to make a better-tasting loaf, but frozen berries can still work. Here is how to have success with frozen blueberries!
- Add 2-3 teaspoons of flour instead of just one to the berries, and add them to your batter completly frozen. The flour helps to soak up some of the moisture on the outside of the frozen berries.
- Only use blueberries that are frozen solid- Adding defrosted frozen blueberries to your bread makes them a little too gooey inside the bread.
- You also may need to cook your blueberry bread slightly longer if using frozen berries, they pack a little extra moisture. Expect the loaf will likely bake at least 5-10 minutes longer.
- The color of your bread may be different– Frozen blueberries tend to color the batter more and will likely be a slightly different color than fresh when baked.
Adding A Blueberry Jam Swirl (Optional)
For gooier bread, you can swirl about 2 tablespoons of blueberry jam through your batter after it is in the pan. This adds a delicious surprise!
Don’t be afraid to try other flavors of jam if that’s what you have on hand. Raspberry jam or strawberry jam is delicious too but then your loaf will taste a little more like mixed berry.
Try mixing blueberries, jam and lots of flavors into my quick pancake mix muffins. Make three flavors in the same muffin pan!
What Do I Serve With Blueberry Bread?
Blueberry bread makes a great breakfast or snack, and even a nice dessert. Here are some ideas of ways to serve blueberry bread.
- Make as a side for scrambled eggs or as a side for a crowd next to this Sausage Potato Breakfast Casserole.
- Place next to fresh fruit
- Add a small smear of butter or even jam
- Try a dollop of whipped cream on top
- Or add a small scoop of ice cream!
- You can also enjoy this blueberry loaf all by itself!
The kid plate pictured is from my friends at Kiddobloom, they make great stainless steel silverware, plates and bowls.
Other Quick Bread You’ll Love
Lemon Zucchini Cake (With Sweet Lemon Glaze)
Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread
Pineapple Banana Bread
Snickerdoodle Bread
Cranberry Orange Bread (With Orange Glaze!)
Blueberry Bread
Equipment
- Metal bread pan
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 2 large eggs lightly beaten
- 1 cup milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups flour all purpose, plus one teaspoon for blueberries
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cup blueberries
- 1-2 tablespoons coarse sugar optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degress. Cut a piece of parchment paper the size of the pan so it lays over the pan from left to right. Lightly oil the other two sides of the pan not covered in parchment.
- Cream together the softened butter and the sugar until the sugar is fully mixed into the butter with spatula or electric mixer.
- Add beaten eggs, milk and vanilla to your bowl and mix well until combined.
- In a second bowl add 2 cups of flour, baking powder and salt and combine until mixed.
- Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Be careful not to overmix.
- In a small bowl add blueberries and sprinkle with a teaspoon of flour, then stir the blueberries so the flour mixes evenly.
- Fold half of the blueberries into the batter, then add the batter to the pan. Add the remaining blueberries to the top of the batter and swirl with a spoon.
- (Optional) Sprinkle the top of the loaf with 1-2 tablespoons of sugar. A course sugar works best, see the notes for more details.
- Bake in the oven for 70-85 minutes or until completely cooked through. Check with a toothpick by inserting into your loaf ( I start checking at 60 minutes to be safe- ovens can sometimes vary), and making sure the toothpick doesn’t have raw batter clinging to it. (It may have blueberry, that’s ok!)
- Let the blueberry bread cool for 10-15 minutes, then remove from the pan. It slices a lot easier if you let the bread cool completely. Enjoy!
Notes
- Creaming together the sugar and the softened butter, in the beginning, is an important step that will make your blueberry bread have more of a soft and silky cake-like texture.
- Overmixing the batter can cause this bread to be more crumbly and can affect the texture of your final bread. If you’re using an electric mixer, it’s especially important not to walk away from the dough with the machine on or it may overmix.
- Turbinado sugar works really well for sprinkling on top of your blueberry muffin loaf to give it that pro bakery feel. This thick, coarse sugar adds just a touch of sweetness to the top of baked goods and is often what the pros use.
Nutrition
Did You Make This?
I would love to see it! Share your thoughts with me in the comments below!
I had blueberries and didn’t know what to do with them. I was searching on pinterest this receipe came up, so I decided to make it. It is delicious and I would definitely recommend it.
So glad it was delicious for you Darlene!
I dont have powdered sugar to make the glaze so instead i read i can use corn starch how much of corn starch do i use for this recipe?
You can not use straight corn starch to make a glaze, it will not be sweet. I think what you are reading about is you can use a mixture of regular sugar blended with cornstarch in a blender to make powdered sugar as a substitute, the cornstarch acts as an anti-caking agent to keep it from getting clumpy. The ratio is one cup of sugar and one tablespoon of cornstarch, which makes about two cups of powdered sugar, then you blend it in a blender or food processor. Once you’ve made the powdered sugar, you can use it cup for cup in any glaze recipe. Hope that helps!
I made this today and found it disappointing. I do a lot of baking and despite following all the instructions, it came out dense and with most all the blueberries fallen to the bottom. I too noticed the baking soda mentioned in the details but baking powder in the recipe. That hasn’t been fixed yet. The wet mixture separated once the milk and eggs were added. I would think an alternating wet/dry addition may have provided a better texture.
Hi Dawn- What you’re describing sounds like the temperature of the butter wasn’t quite right. Either you used melted butter, or the butter was too cold and the sugar didn’t cream well with the butter to make it light and fluffy. The butter being the wrong temperature can totally affect the end result of this quick bread and make it dense. Also I’d check your baking powder to make sure it is still viable, as if it is getting close to expiration it can also cause issues.
I had switched the baking soda to baking powder in all of the places in the article, but I see it didn’t save in one spot so I switched it again. The original recipe I created used baking soda, but I changed the recipe over time as I found using the appropriate amounts of baking powder provided better results.
As for the blueberries sinking, their is a whole section in the article about tips to keep that from happening, from tossing them in flour to adding half to the center of the batter and the other half to the top. Hope that helps for your next baking trial. -Kristy
Hi Kristy! I have made your recipe at least a “Dozen” times!! I don’t edit anything! I have made the cake in small pans and given them as gifts!! My family ask me all the time, when are you making the blueberry bread again!! We all Love it! Thank you for this great recipe! Tina
Can you use frozen Blueberries and if so do you have to adjust the recipe in any way?
Hi Beverley, Yes you can use frozen blueberries. There is a bulleted list in the article on how to adjust for using frozen berries, it would be a lot to retype out again. Happy baking! -Kristy
I made it twice! One the regular way and then vegan. I like the regular way better the next day. I just made it the vegan way today so I don’t know how it will be tomorrow. Do I need to refrigerate it?
Hi CJ, This bread doesn’t have to be refrigerated but will last longer if you do. It lasts about 3 days on the counter in a covered container but the fridge can make it last a little longer. So glad it was delicious for you! -Kristy
Can I use huckleberries in this recipe instead of blueberries?
I have never made this recipe with huckleberries, but I’m pretty sure they are similar enough to blueberries they could be substituted one for one. Let me know if you try it how it goes! -Kristy
Can you use almond flour instead of regular flour
I have not tried this recipe with almond flour, sorry. Let me know if you try it!
Hi, just wondering can you make this in the bread maker
Hi Karalee, I’ve never tried this recipe in the breadmaker. I don’t currently own a breadmaker, but this recipe is a quickbread that bakes more like a muffin or cake, so I’d keep that in mind when consulting your bread machine’s manual for how to convert the recipe. If you try it let me know how it goes! -Kristy
Recipe reads: 2 cups 1/2 cups all purpose flour
So is it supposed to be 2 cups or 2 1/2 cups? Why in the world did you write it that way? It’s confusing?
Hi Mary, The recipe uses 2 cups of flour plus one teaspoon which you use for the blueberries, I’ve edited it now. I haven’t looked at this recipe specifically in a while, and it looks like something glitched when I changed a program I was using on my website. I’m sorry it was momentarily confusing, but tech is not perfect. I do my best to make things as clear as possible but I don’t always catch every glitch.
I can’t wait to try this bread. I had to do a double take, however when I saw the recipe because you have my exact maiden name lol!
So nice to meet you Kristy! It’s not often you run into someone who spells Kristy this way, let alone has a matching last name too, small world! Hope you love the blueberry bread, let me know how it turns out! I hope it’s delicious for you. 🙂 -Kristy
My family loved this. I made it one weekend and I had to make it the next weekend with the remaining blueberries. I followed the recipe exactly using frozen blueberries and I added the suggested swirl of BlackBerry jam. I cooked it for 65. Checking at 60. Because I bake a lot. I had crumble in the fridge and put that on top instead of course sugar. So delicious and easy.
Sounds delicious Pascale! I will have to try your crumble idea, I bet that takes it up a notch even more, yum! -Kristy
Hi , can we make this blueberry bread with splenda too?
Hi Aneela,
I have not made this recipe with splenda before, so I can’t speak to the taste of the finished loaf. But I do know quick breads, like this blueberry bread, tend to be a little easier to substitute splenda for sugar. Let me know how it goes if you try it!
-Kristy
Hi,
In ingredients you said 1 tbsp baking powder but in method you are putting baking soda so which one is right?
Hi Aneela! I’m so sorry for the slip of the fingers. It’s baking powder for this recipe, I’ll fix that in the recipe. That does make a difference in recipe too, thanks for messaging me so I can fix it. I hope your loaf turns out delicious!
This looks and sounds absolutely delightful. Love the tips!
Thank you, hope you try the recipe!