🫐🍞 My Blueberry Cream Cheese Loaf Bread tastes like one big blueberry muffin top and is more like a dense cake-meets-muffin top than bread. It’s fall-apart tender, soft, and super moist while staying springy, bouncy, and oozing with blueberries!

Quick & Easy Blueberry Cream Cheese Loaf
I love blueberry muffins like my skinny blueberry muffins and classic blueberry muffins, but my favorite part is by far the muffin tops. Those sweet, super-moist crowns that adorn muffins but are gone in about three bites.
So I decided to bake a whole loaf of bread that tastes like one big muffin top, making it even better with a cream cheese layer inspired by my reader-favorite cream cheese-filled banana bread and cream cheese-filled pumpkin bread.
- Perfect for breakfast, brunch, or dessert, the bread tastes more like a dense cake. It’s super springy, bouncy, and soft, never dry.
- The recipe makes two loaves, one 9-by-5-inch and one 8-by-4-inch, just like my Carrot Cake Loaf recipe. It’s perfect for sharing!
- The blueberries soften as they bake, releasing their juices and infusing each bite with incredible fruity flavor.
This is amazing! So easy to make and delicious. We used fresh blueberries, and wouldn’t change a thing about the recipe. It was nice to have an extra smaller loaf to share.
Melissa


Ingredients You’ll Need
This blueberry bread recipe comes together with pretty much the same ingredients used for muffins. Here’s a list of everything you’ll need:
- Cream Cheese: Use full-fat, brick-style cream cheese for the best results. Let it sit out of the refrigerator to soften. The softer the cream cheese is, the easier it will be to mix. If yours isn’t quite soft enough, heat in the microwave for 5 seconds
- Sugar: I use granulated sugar to sweeten the cream cheese mixture and bread. I also include light brown sugar in the bread batter for extra sweetness, moisture, and a subtle molasses taste
- Blueberries: Fresh or frozen berries both work well. No need to thaw them first
- Flour: All-purpose flour forms the base of the quick bread
- Unsalted Butter, Buttermilk, and Oil: These add moisture and richness to the bread. Use a neutral oil like canola oil or vegetable oil for the best results
- Eggs
- Leaveners: Both baking powder and baking soda help the bread rise as it bakes
- Salt: This is optional. I omitted it, because the buttermilk is already salted
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make a Blueberry Cream Cheese Loaf
- Prepare the wet ingredients. Combine cream cheese and granulated sugar in a bowl. Then, toss the blueberries with flour in a second mixing bowl. Combine melted butter, buttermilk, oil, eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla in a third bowl.
- Add the dry ingrdients. Once the butter mixture is smooth, whisk in flour, leaveners, and salt just until combined. Be careful not to overmix! Gently fold in the blueberries.
- Layer. Portion the batter evenly between two prepared pans. Distribute the cream cheese mixture evenly, and pour the remaining blueberry batter on top.
- Bake the loaves until the top is set, and the center is golden brown. A toothpick inserted into the center may not come out clean because of the cream cheese filling. If the bread is browning fast on top before the center is cooked through, tent with foil in the last 15 minutes of cooking.
- Cool the bread in the pan slightly. Then, transfer the loaves to a wire rack to cool completely, and enjoy!


Blueberry Cream Cheese Loaf
Ingredients
- 8 ounces cream cheese, well softened (whipped or light are okay, I use Trader Joe’s Whipped Light)
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ¾ cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup to 1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil, see below
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch salt, optional (buttermilk is already a salted milk and I omitted adding salt)
- 1 ½ teaspoons lemon zest, optional for lemon-flavored bread (I omitted)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F; spray loaf pans with floured cooking spray; set aside. I used one 9-by-5-inch loaf pan and one 8-by-4-inch loaf pan. Or try two 9×5 inch pans, a 10- to 12-cup Bundt or tube cake pan, 9-inch springform pan and bake as a coffee cake, or muffin pans. Do not use two 8×4 pans; batter will not all fit.
- In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and whisk vigorously to combine. The softer the cream cheese is, the easier this will be. If yours isn’t quite soft enough, heat in the microwave for 5 seconds. Set bowl aside.
- In another medium bowl, combine blueberries, 1 tablespoon flour, and toss gently to coat. This helps prevent blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the pan while baking. If using frozen berries, keep them frozen or very cold rather than thawing them in advance because they stay intact better and bleed less when still frozen or very cold.
- In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter, about 1 minute on high power. Add the buttermilk, oil (I use 1/2 cup canola oil and the second day and beyond it’s perfect. The first day it’s a bit oily, but I don’t mind it and it dries out on the second day and longterm results are great. If you prefer drier bread, use 1/4 to 1/3 cup noting bread will dry out more as it ages), eggs, 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and whisk vigorously until combined.
- Add 2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder, optional salt, and stir to incorporate; don’t overmix. Gently fold in the blueberries. Eyeball it and pour about one-quarter of the batter into each of the two prepared pans, with the 9×5 getting slightly more than the 8×4; batter should come up about one-third of the way up the side of each pan.
- Distribute the cream cheese mixture between the two pans, with the larger pan getting slightly more. Smooth it lightly with a spatula. Distribute remaining blueberry batter roughly evenly between the two pans, with the larger pan getting slightly more. Smooth it lightly with a spatula.
- Bake the two loaves (9×5 and 8×4) for 45 to 65 minutes, or until top is set in the center and golden; a toothpick may or may not come out clean because it could hit a patch of cream cheese. Baking times will vary greatly by pan sizes used. I baked the 8×4 loaf for 48 minutes and the 9×5 for 60 minutes. Muffins or mini loaves could bake in as short as 20 minutes, a big Bundt cake may need 60 to 65 minutes. Allow bread to cool in pans for at least 15 minutes before removing and transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. If bread is browning fast on top before center is cooking through, tent with foil in last 15 minutes of cooking.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Hi there I baked this cake today. It turned out really oily and soft. I baked it for 60mins in a 9″ cake pan. It did not turn out anything like yours except for the outer most layer. The yellow is like it’s rotting or just very dirty yellow? I would like to know what was wrong with it? My family loves it by the way! I am a fan of your recipes. Keep on going!
I baked my bread in a LOAF PAN not a cake pan. Of course your results will be different than mine if you used a CAKE PAN, not a loaf pan.
If you try the recipe again and bake it as written, you will have better results. If you found the batter oily, reduce the oil slightly.
That looks so good! I cannot get enough blueberry breakfast treats! :)
Thanks, Kevin, for saying hi and you have tons of goodies on your site I cannot get enough of! Normally I am a sweets rather than savory person, but pretty much every dip you post, I want!
I am loving that cream cheese swirl that winds around the juicy berries!!! The bread looks so dense and absolutely perfect! I love a great muffin top!!!
Thanks, Jocelyn. I love a great muffin top too (on my muffins – and if I ate more of this, it would be on me…lol)
If I use frozen blueberries, is it ok to leave them frozen when I mix them in?
Right in the directions in the recipe I wrote this: ” If using frozen berries, keep them frozen or very cold rather than thawing them in advance because they stay intact better and bleed less when still frozen or very cold.” – so yes! LMK how it goes for you!
Great thanks!! Sorry I missed that!
muffin top bread….i am so LOVING this idea! the top of the muffin is the best part…i may dust off my bundt pan to try this recipe…it would look so pretty.
It would be gorgeous and actually, perfect. If I wasn’t making this to blog about, I would have done that from the get-go. But people have a Bundt fear and like their loaf pans. But in a blogless-world, Bundt would be best!
I love that you created an entire bread of the best part of muffins! Now if you have any leftovers, I’d gladly help you out with those.
Is it totally inappropriate to make muffin top jokes? ;) Ummm, I want to eat this whole loaf. It just looks so unbelievable soft, and with the cream cheese swirled in–I am in so much love!
I had to refrain from making them the whole post. Lol
Muffin tops are the best! This bread looks very yummy, but it is also super pretty with the berries and perfectly brown crust.
On my to do list this weekend! Can’t wait to try it!
Youre going to LOVE IT!! Keep me posted!
Love the title- the muffin top is the best part :)
This looks so incredibly moist–just like muffin tops! :) I don’t think this would last more than a day in my house…
What a strike of luck! In Australia it is berry season AND I have made a blueberry loaf too (made with yeast base). Blueberries are such a great fruit in baked goods. I imagine this loaf taste like a blueberry cheese cake but for breakfast.
I would love to try this one day, I am not familiar with muffin tops, but they sound great.
For the cream cheese, I have always found that if you can make the cream cheese a different density to the batter, it will float. Also the “zebra” technique works wonders in loafs like these too, my mum had away layer quick cakes that way.
I LOOOOVE muffin tops! The absolute best part of the muffin by far :-)