Summer Blueberry Loaf for a Sweet and Endless Summer

Eating seasonally has its rewards. Fresh blueberries are at their summer peak, so stock up and make a loaf of blueberry quick bread. Muffins are wonderful, but a quick bread loaf bursting with blueberries means you can cut the slices as skinny — or as generous — as you like.

I make fruit-packed quick bread every week. It’s breakfast and/or afternoon pick-me-up for my husband, and an anytime treat for both of us. What I make depends on what’s in season or what I’ve got handy — mango, banana, cinnamon raisin bran, but blueberry bread is one of my faves. 

Blueberries have the double benefit of being both virtuous — they’re antioxidant and antiinflammatory powerhouses — and delicious. They’re mildly sweet and ever-so-slightly floral.   And now’s the time.  Eat by the handful till your tongue turns blue (I do), add them to smoothies, make blueberry pie, but absolutely make this quick bread. It’s moist, tender, and best of all, fruit forward.

How to make blueberry loaf:

1. In a large bowl, sift together unbleached flour, evaporated cane sugar, baking powder and baking soda.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together vegan yogurt, orange juice and grapeseed oil  
3. Pour wet ingredients into the flour mixture and stir quickly, with a light hand, until just combined. 
4. Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
5. I didn’t forget the blueberries. Rather than stirring them into the batter sprinkle the blueberries on top of the batter. They’ll sink a little in the baking, but not much, so you get to see, as well as taste, all the berry goodness. 
6. Bake for 1 hour or until the bread puffs and turns golden and spring back to the touch.  
7. Slices best when cool. Irresistible when warm.  
8. If you’re really a muffin person, prepare as directed, spoon into a prepared muffin tin, filling cups 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes.

Blueberry Loaf Tips: 

• Blueberries. Lots of ‘em. Ever have a slice of fruit quick bread or muffin and wonder where the fruit was? Blueberry bread should be mostly blueberry held together with a little batter. This recipe calls for a cup, but you can add up to 1/2 cup more.
• Orange juice — The orange provides natural sweetness, enhances the blueberries, and adds a pop of vitamin C., the juice helps create a moist quick bread.  
• Plantbased yogurt —The plantbased yogurt interacts with the baking soda and creates lift. The result? A tender, moist loaf mildly sweet and studded with berries. The bad news — yogurt’s probiotics get baked out.  The good news — the yogurty goodness is baked right in.  
• I used to make this with unsweetened plantbased milk with a tablespoon of cider vinegar, to clabber and create a sort of buttermilk.  You can still do it that way, if you like, but unsweetened commercial plantbased yogurt makes it dead easy to make, your job quicker and easier.
• What you won’t need: Eggs, of course — please, we’re vegan — but no egg substitute, either. No aquafaba, flax seed, soda water or commercial egg substitute, and yet this loaf bakes up light, moist and tender. Think of it as blueberry magic.
• If you love blueberries like I do, thank pollinators.  Blueberries, like other foods we love like avocados, cacao and coffee, rely on bees and other pollinators.
• In the odd event you don’t eat this all at once, wrap well in plastic wrap or foil — or plastic wrap and then foil for the obsessive)  and pop in the freezer. Blueberry bread freezes beautifully.  So do blueberries. 

How to Freeze Blueberries

• My freezer is full of frozen fruit — blueberries, strawberries, mango,  banana — everything I grab up in season, and save for later.  Of all of them, blueberries freeze the best.  Here’s how you do it:
• Pour berries into a flat, rimmed container, such as a baking sheet, and spread in a single layer. Freeze for several hours or overnight. When berries are frozen solid, store them in an airtight container or resealable bag. 
• If you’re using frozen blueberries for this or any other recipe, no need to thaw (yay!). Add them frozen. They’ll burst  when they cook, and be almost like blueberry jam.  Lucky you.

Summer Blueberry Loaf

July is national blueberry month but keep the party going — all year. Blueberries freeze beautifully.  So does this bread. So you can taste summer again any time you want.

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Ingredients

  

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• ⅔ cup evaporated cane sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup plain unsweetened vegan yogurt
• ⅔ cup fresh orange juice
• ¼ cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
• 1 cup blueberries

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Lightly oil a 9X5-inch loaf pan.
• In a large bowl, sift together unbleached flour, evaporated cane sugar, baking powder and baking soda.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together vegan yogurt, orange juice and grapeseed oil
• Pour wet ingredients into the flour mixture and stir quickly, with a light hand, until just combined.
• Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan and only then sprinkle the blueberries on top, so the whole bread is studded with them.
• Bake for 1 hour or until the bread puffs and turns golden and spring back to the touch.
• Slices best when cool. Irresistible when warm.
• If you’re really a muffin person, prepare as directed, spoon into a prepared muffin tin, filling cups 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes.

More sweet ways with summer fruit:

• Summer fruit kuchen
• Summer Berry Pudding
• Mango Freeze
• Hannah Kaminsky of @Bittersweet keeps things chill with frozen berry tart.
• @LartisaneBakery’s Carolina Molea shares her recipe for her tropical AF soursop mousse and mango gel.
• @NigelSlater’s melon with herbs and elderflower— as refreshing as an English garden.

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