Blueberry Muffins Bakery Style

Recipe: Blueberry Muffins Recipe »

Make perfect bakery style blueberry muffins with this easy, one bowl recipe - no mixer required. These muffins are soft, fluffy and full of juicy blueberries that stay perfectly suspended (never sinking or turning to mush). I'm sharing my secrets to getting golden, soft blueberry muffins every time.

About These Blueberry Muffins

This one bowl, no mixer required recipe for bakery style blueberry muffins is so easy but so delicious. All you need is blueberries, butter, egg, vanilla, sugar, flour and baking powder to make a dozen delicious muffins! And I'm going to share the secret to making the best blueberry muffins where the blueberries don't sink to the bottom and the fruit stays juicy and intact!

The secret to perfect blueberry muffins is: USE FROZEN BLUEBERRIES!

Frozen blueberries go into the butter completely frozen but while they're baking they defrost and cook but don't turn to mush. I've made these with fresh blueberries and the blueberries have turned to absolute mush. (And don't worry if you're lucky enough to only have fresh blueberries, just freeze them hard before using).

Also blueberries can be tart, especially frozen ones so I always toss the frozen blueberries in sugar before adding to the batter. This does two things: it sweetens the blueberries but it also gives the blueberries "grip" and prevents them from sinking to the bottom in the batter!

Video How To Make Blueberry Muffins

Video: How to Make Perfect Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients for Blueberry Muffins

Butter - I always use salted butter even for sweets

Caster or superfine sugar - Fine sugar will mix better with the butter. White or raw sugar is too coarse.

Buttermilk - Can be bought or made at home. For every cup of buttermilk, replace 1 tablespoon of milk with lemon juice or vinegar.

Egg - large egg, room temperature.

Vanilla - vanilla extract, essence or paste works here.

Cake flour - Cake flour can be bought or made at home. For every cup of cake flour, replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour (not bread flour) with 2 tablespoons of cornflour or fine cornstarch.

Baking powder - To give the muffins rise (just make sure it is in date!)

Blueberries - Frozen blueberries work so much better than fresh. Freeze any fresh blueberries if that's what you have.

Tips For Making Blueberry Muffins

1 - As I mentioned, frozen blueberries are the best for blueberry muffins. Fresh blueberries just become mushy once baked into a muffin. Plus frozen blueberries are much more budget friendly so win win!

2 - This muffin batter is not a runny or liquid batter. It's on the stiffer side which means fluffy muffins but also ones that rise well and can suspend the blueberries in the muffin so that they don't sink to the bottom.

3 - Gluten which provides structure is part of flour but gluten development is great for bread and pizza but not great for cakes as it makes them tough! Gluten development happens when you overmix mix flour and liquid so the biggest tip when making muffins it not to overmix the batter. If there are a few streaks of flour that is fine especially when we will be adding blueberries and stirring these in. Go for 10 stirs or 10 seconds of mixing max!

4 - We also use two ingredients for tender-crumbed muffins. The first is buttermilk. Using buttermilk which has acid, helps to break down the gluten or protein strands. Also cake flour has lower protein than regular flour so it makes for less gluten development.

5 - These blueberry muffins are really best eaten on the day they are baked or within 1 day. They can be frozen for up to 3 months.

Other fruit muffins to try next are: banana muffins, strawberry muffins or pear & cheddar muffins.

Blueberry Muffins Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Blueberry Muffins Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Makes: 12 muffins

Ingredients Needed

• 80g/2.8ozs melted butter
• 200g/7ozs caster or superfine sugar
• 250ml/8.8flozs buttermilk
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 360g/12.7ozs cake flour
• 4 teaspoons/20g/0.7ozs baking powder
• 250g/8.8ozs frozen blueberries
• 1 tablespoon caster or superfine sugar plus extra to sprinkle on top

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 PREPARE - Preheat oven to 180C/350F fan forced or 200C/400F conventional. Line a 12 capacity muffin tray with liners.

Step 2 WET - Whisk the melted butter with the sugar in a large bowl. Gradually add the buttermilk and whisk in along with the egg and vanilla.

Step 3 DRY - Sift in the flour and baking powder and then fold gently but do not overmix. Fold in for around 10 seconds but no more.

Step 4 BLUEBERRIES - Toss the frozen blueberries with the tablespoon of sugar and then mix most of them into the batter reserving a handful of them. Mix in until just combined.

Step 5 FILL - Using an ice cream scoop, fill the cases 3/4 full. Add the extra blueberries on top, around 2-3 per blueberry where there aren't any blueberries on top. Think the chihuahua or blueberry muffin meme below ;). Sprinkle with extra sugar.

Step 6 BAKE - Bake for 23-25 minutes or until golden and risen and the centre bounces back when gently pressed. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then remove and place on a cooling rack.

Substitution notes and ingredients:

Buttermilk can be made by adding a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to regular milk to make up 1 cup.

Vanilla can also be subbed with lemon zest.

Blueberries can be subbed for frozen raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, mixed berries or cherries (halve the cherries if they're very large).

Personal Note

Dear Reader, I have more Cookie the bird news! We were walking the dogs when I popped my head over the fence when we got to Cookie's house as I always do as I like to say hello. Cookie wasn't in the cage. Then I saw Cookie's mum in the garden looking sad. "My bird is gone!" she said sighing, clearly upset.

She explained that yesterday, when her son opened the cage, Cookie flew out and up a tree. Then he was attacked by another bird and flew away scared. They had hoped that Cookie would return but there was no sign of the bird. We promised that we would keep a look out for Cookie on our walks.

That night, I was scrolling social media and I opened facebook. A post on my suburb's page popped up asking if anyone was missing a parrot. I sat up straight and whispered, "Cookie?". I wasn't sure what to do. Cookie is a pet and probably had a bit of a rough night already and it was around 9pm when I saw this. The post went live 19 hours ago and there was no response from Cookie's owner so I assumed that she hadn't seen it or wasn't a member of the page.

I worried about Cookie being in the wild as he was a pet his whole life. Mr NQN agreed to come with me to knock on their door. A young guy answered the door and I asked if his mother was home. I explained to them that someone had spotted a parrot and was it Cookie? She looked at the photo, "It's Cookie!!" she exclaimed. She and her family joined the facebook group and left comments. I put out some leftover blueberries from this photo shoot just in case Cookie came our way.

The next day and Cookie was returned back to his cage, his first (and hopefully last) adventure over!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you prefer your blueberry muffins plain or topped with sugar or streusel? And would you have knocked on their door?