A classic blueberry muffin from simple ingredients you already have. Sweet and tender, but best of all quick and easy to make!
It seems like everyone is looking for the perfect blueberry muffin recipe. Your search stops here! No unusual ingredients, best flavor, and beautiful to behold. What more could you want in a muffin?
In a moment of doubt, I tried a tour of different recipes, but at the end of the day, my original, classic recipe won out. Tender crumb, sweet, flavorful, and easy to make.
My kids love these for breakfast or a morning snack. I always double or triple the recipe to stock up and keep the extras in our freezer. Forgot to plan breakfast for tomorrow morning? Grab a few muffins from the freezer. Problem solved!
Notes on Blueberry Muffin Ingredients:
This recipe is a classic recipe that uses standard ingredients. No specialty flours or expensive extracts. If you have blueberries in your freezer, this is a recipe that you can throw together any time
Flour: I use all-purpose flour. It’s simple. It’s relatively inexpensive. It’s in my pantry. It’s my go-to flour!
Baking powder: This double-action levening agent creates bubbles, causing your muffins to rise both when mixed with liquid, and again when heated up. Unlike baking soda, it doesn’t need an acid (like lemon juice or buttermilk) to work.
Vegetable oil: My fat of choice for muffins is usually vegetable oil. It leads to a moistness that butter just can’t give you. It’s also less expensive than butter, so that’s two points for oil!
Blueberries: Fresh or frozen blueberries are both fine. It’s rare that I can get fresh blueberries past my hungry kids to the oven, so I usually reserve fresh blueberries for eating plain and use frozen blueberries for muffins.
If you’re using frozen blueberries, let them thaw for a few hours or warm up in the microwave almost to room temperature before using. Once you warm the blueberries, a beautiful blue juice will appear. I personally love a blueberry muffin with blue swirls in it, so I leave that juice in. Since it throws off the ratio of wet-to-dry ingredients, I’ll toss the thawed blueberries in a tablespoon of flour to balance it out. If you don’t want that blue swirl, drain your blueberries after thawing and toss with a tablespoon of the flour you’ve already measured out for the dry ingredients.
If you’re using fresh blueberries, you can reserve a tablespoon of pre-measured flour to toss your blueberries.
Lower-Sugar Blueberry Muffins
While this muffin has less sugar than some of its sweeter counterparts, you can decrease the sugar without sacrificing the flavor. When I decrease the sweetness in a recipe, I like to swap out the sugar for spices or extracts. When I make low-sugar blueberry muffins, I decrease the sugar to 1/2 cup and add a teaspoon vanilla.
Muffin Method of Mixing
Blueberry muffins are supposed to be soft and tender. Overworking the batter by stirring too aggressively develops the gluten in the flour, causing muffins to be tough. How can you avoid this culinary no-no? By using the “muffin method”! Quite simply, it’s a gentle mixing of your ingredients. The trick is to mix gently enough not to develop the gluten, but thoroughly enough to get everything mixed together.
To start, whisk your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, levening agents, salt). I recommend using a whisk instead of a wooden spoon because this can break up any clumps of flour that may be trying to sneak into your delicious muffin.
Separately mix your wet ingredients thoroughly. I like to beat my egg a bit before adding it to the wet ingredients for any muffins or quick breads so that it mixes in more easily. We don’t want any clumps of egg!
Make a well in the center of your dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredient mixture in the well. Gently stir it all together. Stop mixing when there are still small spots of flour. Add in your blueberries and gently fold them in, incorporating in your last bits of flour.
Scooping Batter
What’s the best way to get that muffin batter into the pan? By now, you probably have your favorite way, but might I suggest to you something new: your ice cream scoop. Do you remember the lunch lady scooping mashed potatoes onto your plate with an ice cream scoop? She was my inspiration! I love using an ice cream scoop with a trigger release to easily divide my batter into muffin cups. Divides evenly and releases easily. Much easier than using a spoon.
Happy Baking!
Classic Blueberry Muffins
Equipment
- muffin pan
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup flour, divided (195 grams if measuring by weight)
- ¾ cup sugar (*see notes for low-sugar version)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- ⅓ cup milk
- 1 cup blueberries fresh or frozen, thawed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Prepare muffin pan by either using a muffin cup or greasing muffin cups well with Magic Cake Release (see notes for link.)
- Measure out 1 1/2 cups flour. Reserve 1 Tablespoon of measured flour.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.
- In a separate bowl, thoroughly mix vegetable oil, egg and milk.
- Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Pour the wet ingredients into the center of the well. Mix only until almost all of the flour is mixed in. Do not mix fully.
- If blueberries are frozen and thawed, pour off juice (see notes). Toss blueberries (fresh or frozen) with reserved Tablespoon of flour. Add blueberries and any extra flour in the bowl to muffin batter. Carefully fold in, mixing in remaining flour.
- Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
- Bake at 400°F for 20-25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted into center of biggest muffin comes out clean.
- Remove from muffin tin and cool completely on wire rack.
Notes
- If you are using frozen blueberries, thaw for 1-2 hours before adding them to the batter, or quickly thaw in the microwave until almost room temperature.
- If you would like uniform-colored muffins, drain off the resulting juice.
- If you would like a blue-swirl in your muffins, keep the juice and modify the flour. Measure out the 1 1/2 cups flour, plus an additional Tablespoon of flour for tossing with the blueberries.
- Decrease sugar to 1/2 cup
- Add 1 teaspoon vanilla to wet ingredients to boost the flavor.
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