This Lemon Blueberry Angel Food Cake Roll looks fancy but is so incredibly easy to make! It’s made with angel food cake mix, a lemon cream cheese filling, blueberry pie filling and topped off with homemade whipped cream!
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This Lemon Blueberry Angel Food Cake Roll brings to life one of the best fruity combinations of all time: lemon and blueberry. (Hello, Lemon Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake, Baked Lemon Blueberry Donuts, Lemon Blueberry Cake — I’m looking at you).
With angel food cake mix, lemon cream cheese filling, blueberry pie filling and homemade Whipped Cream — it’s definitely a showstopper.
This cake is a fun new variation of my favorite easy angel food cake roll desserts — check out this Cherry Cheesecake Angel Food Cake Roll, this Pineapple Lush Angel Food Cake Roll, and this Triple Berry Angel Food Cake Roll for more dessert inspiration!
This roll cake is delicious, makes for a beautiful presentation, and is so incredibly easy to make!
Ingredients Needed:
- Angel Food Cake Mix: plus whatever ingredients are needed to prepare the cake. In most cases, you’ll only need water.
- Powdered Icing Sugar: we’re using powdered sugar to dust the outside of the cake before rolling it up. This adds sweetness and helps prevent it from sticking or getting soggy as it cools.
- Cream Cheese and Heavy Cream: the base for our cream cheese filling.
- Lemon Juice and Zest: use fresh lemon juice and zest for the best lemon-y flavor.
- Vanilla Extract: adds depth of flavor.
- Yellow Food Coloring: this is optional, but gives the lemon filling that fresh yellow color.
- Blueberry Pie Filling: you can use store-bought filling or make a homemade filling.
- Heavy Whipping Cream and Powdered Sugar: makes up our homemade whipped topping.
- Fresh Blueberries and Lemon Slices: for garnish!
How to Make this Lemon Blueberry Angel Food Cake Roll
This Angel Food Cake Roll looks fancy, but actually takes just 20 minutes to prep!
- Bake the cake: Prepare the angel food cake mix, then spread it into a lined and greased baking sheet. Bake until light golden-brown.
- Roll and cool: Lay a clean, lint-free towel onto the counter and dust with powdered sugar. Flip the cake on top, then roll up with the towel inside. Cool to room temperature.
- Add the filling: In a bowl, beat together cream cheese, powdered sugar, cream, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla. Add yellow food coloring if using. Unroll the cooled cake, then spread with ½ of the cream cheese filling. Layer on the blueberry pie filling, then carefully roll the cake back up.
- Top and serve: Combine cream and powdered sugar until stiff peaks for to make the homemade whipped cream. Cover the roll with the rest of the cream cheese filling, then pipe or dollop with the whipped cream. Top with lemon and blueberries, then slice and serve!
FAQs for Roll Cake
A roll cake is, well, a cake that is rolled. Roll cakes are thin sheet cakes that are layered with filling, frosting, or jam/jelly, then rolled up into a spiral shape.
Not necessarily. Not all cake recipes result in a cake that can be rolled without cracking. If you want to roll up a particular type of cake, I recommend finding a cake recipe that is intended for cake rolls.
If your roll cake is falling apart, it is likely too dry. There are a couple of things you can do to prevent this from happening. First, don’t over-bake it. Second, roll it while it’s still hot. The hotter the cake, the more moisture it has. It will dry as it cools.
Once you add the topping, I recommend serving the cake right away or refrigerating until ready to serve. The cake will last a couple of days in the fridge, but any longer than that and the cake can dry out as it is difficult to cover completely once frosted.
Tips and Notes for this Angel Food Cake Roll
- Use a baking sheet. A baking sheet (mine is 10″ by 15″ by 1″) creates the perfect thickness so the cake is easily rollable. I don’t recommend using any other pan.
- Line and grease the baking sheet. This makes it a whole lot easier to remove the cake from the pan in one piece.
- Work quickly. Once you turn the cake out onto the towel, roll it up right away. It’s more malleable when it’s hot. If it cools too much, it may crack when you roll it.
- Use a lint-free towel. Something thin and not fluffy means that we don’t have fuzzies on our cake.
- Sugar the towel. Adding a layer of powdered sugar to the towel helps prevent sticking.
- Cool the cake completely. If you add the filling while the cake is still hot, it will just melt and become runny. I also recommend chilling the cake again after you add the filling and before you slice it. This makes it easier to get nice clean cuts.
Variations
There are plenty of ways you can customize a cake roll whether that’s using another frosting, using another pie filling, or layering in fresh fruit. Here are just a few roll cake recipe variations:
- Strawberry Lemon Angel Food Cake Roll
- Cherry Cheesecake Angel Food Cake Roll
- Pineapple Lush Angel Food Cake Roll
- Triple Berry Angel Food Cake Roll
- Lighter Pumpkin Roll
More Lemon Dessert Recipes
Lemon Blueberry Angel Food Cake Roll
written by Ashley Fehr
Ingredients
- 1 angel food cake mix plus ingredients to prepare
- ¼ cup + ¾ cup powdered icing sugar
- 8 oz cream cheese (250 grams) room temperature
- ¾ cup heavy whipping cream (35%) cold
- ¼ cup lemon juice from one lemon
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest from 1-2 lemons
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- yellow food coloring, optional
- 1 can blueberry pie filling
Whipped Cream
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream (35%)
- 1-2 tablespoons powdered sugar
- fresh blueberries and lemon slices for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 10x15x1″ rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Grease lightly with non stick spray and press parchment paper to the pan.
- Prepare angel food cake mix according to package directions and spread into prepared pan. Bake for 20 minutes or until light golden brown. It will rise up and even above the edge of the pan but will not overflow.
- Lay a clean lint-free kitchen towel on the counter and dust with ¼ cup powdered sugar. Flip hot cake out onto the prepared towel and immediately roll up starting at the short end, with the towel inside.
- Set aside to cool to room temperature, placing in the fridge if you want to speed up the process.
- To make the filling, beat cream cheese in a large bowl until smooth. Add ¾ cup powdered sugar, cream, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla and beat until thick and combined. Add yellow food coloring if desired.
- Make sure that the cake is completely cool and then unroll the cake. Spread with ½ of the cream cheese filling, and then spread with the blueberry pie filling. You may not use all of the filling — you want some in every bite but you also do not want it to squish out.
- Carefully roll back up (no towel this time!), starting at the short end. Cover roll with remaining cream cheese filling.
- Combine cream and powdered sugar and whip until stiff peaks form. Pipe or dollop over the top of the cake roll and top with lemon wedges and fresh blueberries if desired.
Notes
- Use a baking sheet. A baking sheet (mine is 10″ by 15″ by 1″) creates the perfect thickness so the cake is easily rollable. I don’t recommend using any other pan.
- Line and grease the baking sheet. This makes it a whole lot easier to remove the cake from the pan in one piece.
- Work quickly. Once you turn the cake out onto the towel, roll it up right away. It’s more malleable when it’s hot. If it cools too much, it may crack when you roll it.
- Use a lint-free towel. Something thin and not fluffy means that we don’t have fuzzies on our cake.
- Sugar the towel. Adding a layer of powdered sugar to the towel helps prevent sticking.
- Cool the cake completely. If you add the filling while the cake is still hot, it will just melt and become runny. I also recommend chilling the cake again after you add the filling and before you slice it. This makes it easier to get nice clean cuts.
Nutrition Information
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Mlo says
Okay so I followed what you said and didn’t use all of the blueberries in the can and used even less of the filling than I did last time for the lemon mixture. I also made sure to roll the roll a lot tighter earlier when it was cooling. I think the problem is the cake it’s just too dense no matter how thin I spread the cake mix, box cakes mix just isn’t working it’s too heavy. So again all the filling just squishes out the roll. This is the second time I’ve made this and both times have been delicious however I think I’m going to actually make an angel food cake batter instead of using the box mix.
Mlo says
Also when you said don’t use all the filling you were referring to the lemon mixture not the can of blueberries. You should probably put the can size in the ingredients list, most recipes have that information.
Mlo says
What is it about this recipe that takes 6hrs?
The Recipe Rebel says
Hi Mlo! As stated in the recipe card, it’s the chilling time. Enjoy!
Susan says
I made this cake this weekend. Rolled the cake on Saturday and left it in the fridge until Sunday when I filled it right before we ate it for my mother-in-law’s birthday. Not sure what I did wrong. Flavor was great but the cake was a bit rubbery. I used a boxed Angel Food cake mix. And ideas?
Joyce Baumgartner says
Recipe taste is very nice. When making the lemon cream, the 3/4 cup of whipping cream is way too much. The lemon cream is runny. I tried adding more sugar with some success but remains a bit too runny
The Recipe Rebel says
Hi Joyce! Having made this and recipes like this, I can assure you the amounts are correct. If the filling was runny, you likely needed to whip it more.
Rachel Merchlewitz says
What is your trick to get the cream so smooth. I could not get mine to not have lumps in it
The Recipe Rebel says
Hi Rachel, do you mean the cream cheese filling? It needs to be at room temperature and soft in order for there to be no lumps.
Vanessa says
Can you use regular cake mix too? I don’t bake much…well actually I do not bake lol. But love to try new things and this looks semi healthy, so good enough for me to share with my toddlers. 😆
The Recipe Rebel says
Hi Vanessa! Unfortunately a regular cake mix will not work for this recipe, as it won’t roll without breaking.
jimAND ROSE nashwinter says
love it;great job girl;
The Recipe Rebel says
So glad you enjoyed it!
LEEANN WROBLEWSKI says
Do you have to use a dish towel to wrap the cake in or can I use parchment paper to roll it in? I don’t know if the towel absorbs some of the moisture of the hot cake and if this is good or not.
Ashley Fehr says
You definitely want it to absorb some of the moisture so it’s not soggy. You could try using parchment dusted with powdered sugar but I’m not sure if it would be soggy or not.
The Recipe Rebel says
Hi Leeann, this is a pretty standard practice for cake rolls and the only way I’ve ever done it. The dusting of the towel helps the cake from sticking, feel free to experiment if you’d like. I’d love to know how it goes!
Mlo says
So I was able to get the cake rolled just fine and I put it in the fridge and made sure that it was plenty cool when I went to put the filling in. For some reason when I went to roll it back the filling just kept getting squished to the middle and the whole roll became kind of this heavy kind of sloppy mess. Maybe I was adding too much filling but I definitely used can of blueberry pie filling (there was only one size at the store 21oz) and half the filling. Perhaps I need to use less blueberry filling?
Mlo says
The filling was not runny at all and my baking pan was 18 by 13.
Mlo says
I definitely realize I didn’t pre-roll it tightly enough.
The Recipe Rebel says
Hi Mlo! I just did a quick Google search and it looks like cans in the US are bigger than cans in Canada (which is where I am at). It definitely sounds like it was a little too much filling. I’m not sure if you saw where I said in Step 6 that “You may not use all of the filling — you want some in every bite but you also do not want it to squish out.” Hope you enjoy it!
Karen says
There are no amounts of ingredients listed that I could find. Please send recipe to me again.
The Recipe Rebel says
Hi Karen! The recipe card is listed right above the area where you left your comment. You can also click the “jump to recipe” button and it will take you straight there. Hope you enjoy the cake roll!