Blueberry Zucchini Cake with Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Blueberry Zucchini cake is a great cake that is moist, flavorful, and oh so fun to eat! A perfect cake for summer to use your garden bounty. Topped with luscious lemon buttercream frosting, you won’t want to stop eating this amazing cake!
I am pretty sure that the entire country gets zucchini crazy this time of year. Either your garden is overflowing with it, or you are like me and go crazy buying way too many at the market. Either way, everyone is all about putting zucchini in everything right about now! This has got to be one of my favorite produce of the summer.
I seriously love zucchini! And putting it in everything. As a simple side dish, in meatballs, brownies – I mean, you can shove extra zucchini in pretty much anything! But my absolute new favorite way is in this cake!
Zucchini also pairs so well with the blueberries in this cake. It is a fun and unexpected pairing. Another super fun cake that uses blueberries is this blueberry chocolate cake, which people will be so surprised about!
How to make a zucchini blueberry cake
For the full set of directions, make sure you scroll down to the recipe card below!
Make the cakes.
- Preheat oven to 350F and spray two round 8″ cake pans with cooking spray and set aside.
- Grate 1 large zucchini (or two medium ones) and place into a clean dish towel. Squeeze until most of the liquid comes out. You should have about 2 cups of shredded zucchini.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, applesauce, vanilla and sugar.
- Using a rubber spatula carefully fold in the zucchini.
- In a second medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
- Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet and then gently fold in the blueberries.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool for 20 minutes in the pans and then invert onto wire racks to cool completely before frosting.
Make the lemon buttercream frosting.
- In a medium bowl and using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, sugar an salt until pale and creamy.
- Add the lemon juice, zest, and the vanilla and beat for 3-5 minutes.
Assemble the cake.
- Place a small spoonful of the frosting on the center of a cake plate.
- Place one cake onto the center of the cake plate, on top of the frosting dollop (this will help keep the cake from sliding off).
- Spread half of the frosting on the cake (don;t worry about making it pretty, just spread it evenly).
- Place the other cake on top.
- Spread the remaining frosting on top, making sure to evenly spread it across.
- Sprinkle a handful of blueberries on top.
Enjoy!
Storage Information
You can store it at room temperature for 1 day.
Because of the lemon buttercream, I think this cake does best when stored in the refrigerator over time. Store for 3-4 days after baking.
You can also freeze slices of this cake for up to 3 months.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use frozen blueberries?
Yes! Just make sure to thaw the blueberries before using. The cake might have a more purple hue to it because of the frozen blueberries.
Can I bake this into different kinds of cakes?
Yes, you can use this same recipe to make the cake into a bundt cake, cupcakes, or a single layer cake in a 9×13 pan. You will need to adjust the baking time accordingly.
Try these other zucchini recipes:
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Blueberry Zucchini Cake with Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
Blueberry Zucchini Cake
- 3 eggs lightly beaten
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup applesauce
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups white sugar
- 2 cups finely shredded zucchini excess water squeezed out
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pint fresh blueberries plus more for decoration
Lemon Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup butter room temperature
- 3 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 lemon juice and zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Cakes
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Spray two round 8″ cake pans with cooking spray and set aside.
- Grate 1 large zucchini (or two medium ones) and place into a clean dish towel. Squeeze until most of the liquid comes out. You should have about 2 cups of shredded zucchini.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, applesauce, vanilla and sugar.
- Using a rubber spatula carefully fold in the zucchini.
- In a second medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
- Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet.
- Gently fold in the blueberries.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two pans.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool for 20 minutes in the pans and then invert onto wire racks to cool completely.
- Frosting
- In a medium bowl and using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, sugar an salt until pale and creamy.
- Add the lemon juice, zest, and the vanilla and beat for 3-5 minutes.
- Assembly
- Place a small spoonful of the frosting on the center of a cake plate.
- Place one cake onto the center of the cake plate, on top of the frosting dollop (this will help keep the cake from sliding off).
- Spread half of the frosting on the cake (don;t worry about making it pretty, just spread it evenly).
- Place the other cake on top.
- Spread the remaining frosting on top, making sure to evenly spread it across.
- Sprinkle a handful of blueberries on top.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
This recipe is ever so slightly adapted from I am Baker.
I have made this cake twice so far and making it a third time for a bridal shower At the brides request! One question I have, do you peel the zucchini?
Hi Kathy! It is up to you. I never peel my zucchini, I just give it a good scrub. I like the little green flecks the zucchini peel gives the cake. But if you prefer to peel it, you can.
Thanks for sharing! This cake is absolutely delicious. It’s my husband’s birthday, and we were looking for a really moist cake. I didn’t have lemons on hand so I used bottled lemon juice. The conversion looked like 1 juiced lemon = 4-5 Tbsp of juice, so I played it safe and used 4. I thought it was too much. The lemon frosting is really a perfect pairing for the blueberries in the cake. We also added some chopped frozen strawberries (we did about 1/3 strawberries and 2/3 blueberries instead of all blueberries, because my young daughter was helping and requested both fruits). My only issue was the cake really domed in the baking pans and I had to cut off the tops so I could frost a flat top so we could write “happy birthday” more easily. We all think it’s delicious and this recipe will get added into my cake recipes permanently!
Can I use any kind of cake pan i only have a Bundt pan
Yeah, you can use a bundt pan!
will that enough liquid just the applesauce eggs and oil
Yup! Trust the recipe! 🙂
I really do need a piece of this cake right now! I just finished dinner and it is time for dessert – I should hurry in to the kitchen and make it.
This cake is ridiculously delicious – especially the frosting. Makes a MASSIVE cake though so next time I'm going to try halving the recipe. Got rave reviews from friends and kids, the latter of whom never learned that they had just willingly ingested zucchini.
Alright……… I am just gonna say it……YOU are a bad influence !!! I made this cake….. cupcake version actually (so I could freeze some- ha ha) and probably ate a cupcakes worth of the batter to begin with…… and I'm fairly ashamed to say when I finally got a finished cupcake I shoved it in my mouth like a starved Neanderthal. Holy heck this is delicious !!!!!
Tomorrow is baking day !!!! Totally making this- altho I m going to make cupcakes since there is just two of us at home a whole cake would go to waste. I can freeze cupcakes and eat them over time
This looks and sounds so amazing! As soon as I find zucchini, I'm going to give it a try!!
I love that you didn't frost the sides of this cake! Looks delicious!
Thanks Ally! I love the "rustic" frosting look! Plus its so much easier!