Bakery Style Blueberry Muffins
Believe it or not, I was not a muffin fan as a child. I think that had to do with pure ignorance. My mother would always make the boxed muffins and to me, they just looked meh. Obviously, as I grew so did my willingness to try new things. Once I tried a real muffin, I was hooked for life. To me, a muffin doesn’t have to differ from what makes a cupcake special. Great cupcakes are known to be flavorful, moist, and fluffy. Muffins can and should have these same characteristics.
Fast forward to a few years ago when I shared my first muffin recipe. The muffins from my first recipe are delicious, but they are a little more reminiscent of the boxed muffins in texture and size. This time, I wanted to go big or go home. Let’s pack on the complex flavor. Make them bursting with blueberries. Make them tall and big. And let's pack on the streusel topping. I took one bite into these bakery-style blueberry muffins by Chef Thomas Keller and the muffin angels were humming in my ears. These muffins are so great and so easy to make.
Amazing Texture. Moist. Flavorful.
These bakery-style blueberry muffins are:
- Jumbo-sized
- bursting with blueberries
- sweetened with a bit of honey and molasses along with sugars
- satisfying
- simple to make
- warm + buttery
Before We Start Making Muffins:
Before jumping into the nitty-gritty of the recipe, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Blueberry Prep: Picture this. You cut into a muffin expecting to see a bounty of berries. Instead, you see a dull brown muffin with a puddle of berries at the bottom. What happened? Well, the berries sunk while baking. Why does that happen though? Berries must be prepped a certain way to prevent them from sinking to the bottom. This doesn’t just apply to muffins. It applies to any batter you make. The first step is after we wash and dry the berries, we want to toss them in a bit of flour to lightly coat them in that flour. This will help in keeping the berries suspended in the batter. The second step is we’ll freeze the berries as-is, flour and all. We do this because frozen berries bake off a lot better than fresh berries when it comes to a batter recipe. I love fresh berries in things like scones or cobblers. But for batters, such as muffins, cupcakes, cakes – we should freeze them. We’ll keep them frozen until we’re ready to bake.
- Streusel Prep: The streusel topping is one of the components that make these muffins next level. We’re going to prep the topping as well so it will be ready to go when we’re ready to bake. It’s a simple process. We just combine the streusel dry ingredients and then add in the butter in chunks. Coat the butter pieces in the dry ingredients while smashing down in between your fingers. You don’t want to overmix, but you do want to combine them until it forms large clumps.
- Refrigerate and Freeze: We will be keeping our berries frozen until almost the last moment before baking. We’ll also refrigerate our streusel so it’s ready for baking day. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, we want to ensure we refrigerate our muffin batter for at least 24 hours. This is an important step in contributing to the muffin’s depth of flavor and moistness. It just improves the flavor and texture overall as well as gives the batter a chance to rest.
- Last Key Notes: I say this with pretty much every baking recipe, but we’ll want our wet ingredients and our butter to be room temperature, so they incorporate well. Also, don’t overmix! We want muffins, not cornbread 😊.
With all that in mind, let’s make these muffins!
Ingredients for Jumbo Blueberry Muffins
Let’s run down the list of the ingredients you need for these muffins:
- Flour – To give the muffins structure. We use a mix of cake flour for tenderness and all-purpose for structure.
- Sugar – For a little sweetness and for moisture.
- Honey and Molasses - For a little sweetness, moisture, and color.
- Baking Powder + Baking Soda – For the all-important fluffiness and rise.
- Salt + Vanilla – For maximum flavor.
- Buttermilk – For rich flavor and supreme fluffiness.
- Butter – Adds fat for tenderness and buttery flavor.
- Eggs – Bind together the batter and bring everything together.
- Cinnamon – Just a pinch really adds flavor.
How to Make Bakery-Style Blueberry Muffins:
Homemade muffins are such a great treat and making them completely from scratch will change your view on muffins completely.
- Prep your berries and Streusel- Prep your berries and Streusel and refridgerate the streusel and freeze the berries.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients- This includes the flours, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Whisk together the eggs and vanilla- Pour in the eggs and vanilla in a measuring cup and mix until combined. Set aside.
- Add the buttermilk - In a seperate bowl or measuring cup, pour the buttermilk and set aside.
- Cream the butter then gradually add in sugar – Cream butter on medium for about a minute. Scrape the bowl then gradually mix in the sugar. You'll then add in your honey/molasses mixture, vanilla and eggs slowly and then alternate between dry ingredients and buttermilk.
- Refridgerate the batter For at least 24 hours but up to 36.
- Baking Day Allow your batter to sit at room temp. for 10 minutes. Preheat your oven to 425°F and while your oven is preheating, gently fold in the berries to the batter. Portion out your batter using a cookie or ice cream scoop. Bake at 325°F for 35-40 minutes.
These muffins are delicious as-is, but you can also add a drizzle or a dusting of powdered sugar.
More Amazing Brunch Recipes:
Bakery Style Jumbo Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
Prepped Blueberries
- 180 grams ¾ cup + 3 tablespoons blueberries
- 10 grams 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, to coat blueberries
Muffins
- 180 grams prepped blueberries
- 86 grams ½ cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 109 grams ¾ cup + 1.5 tablespoons cake flour
- 2.8 grams ½ + ⅛ teaspoon baking powder
- 2.8 grams ½ +⅛ teaspoon baking soda
- 2.4 grams ¾ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon or pinch of ground cinnamon
- zest of 1 small lemon optional
- 96 grams 3.4 oz unsalted butter, room temp
- 96 grams ½ cup granulated or homemade vanilla sugar
- 40 grams 2 tablespoons unsulfured blackstrap molasses
- 54 grams 2.5 tablespoons honey [wildflower or clover]
- 72 grams ¼ cup +1.5 teaspoons eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon if you're using vanilla sugar
- 57 grams ¼ cup buttermilk, room temp
- 150 grams ¾ cup streusel topping
Streusel Topping
- 240 grams ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour or you can make half almond flour so it's an almond streusel
- 60 grams granulated sugar
- 60 grams brown sugar
- pinch of salt
- pinch of cinnamon
- 120 grams 4.2 oz cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Prep your blueberries by tossing them with flour to coat them. Place the berries in a storage bag and freeze until the next day.
- Prep your streusel topping by combining the ingredients until it's fully combined and large clumps form. Place in a storage bag and refrigerate for the next day.
- For the muffins, combine all of your dry ingredients including the flours, sugar, cinnamon, salt, lemon zest, baking powder, and soda in a bowl and set them aside. Then, begin by creaming the butter at a medium speed for about a minute. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl and paddle well. Start the mixer again and begin to gradually add in the sugar. Mix on medium speed for a minute or two until the sugar is combined.
- Add in your molasses and honey all at once and mix for another minute at a medium-low speed. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl and paddle well.
- Pour your vanilla and eggs into a measuring cup and pour them both slowly into your batter. Mix until the egg is absorbed at a medium speed. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl and paddle well.
- Pour your buttermilk into a measuring cup. Starting at a low speed, add in about half of your dry ingredients. Then slowly pour in half of your buttermilk. Give it a moment to mix. Then add in the rest of your dry ingredients. Give it another moment to mix and then add in the last of your buttermilk. Give it just a few moments to mix until just combined. Don't overmix! Stop the mixer at this point and scrape down the bowl and paddle well.
- Use a rubber spatula to get the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.
- The next day, remove your batter from the fridge and allow the batter to sit out on the counter for 10 minutes. During this time, preheat your oven to 425°F and prepare your muffin pan with liners and cooking spray. After 10 minutes, remove the berries from the freezer and pour them into your batter. Very gently fold in the berries just enough. Don't overmix.
- Use a medium-sized cookie or ice cream scoop to portion out your batter. Remove the streusel topping from the fridge and generously add handfuls to the top of the muffins.
- Place your muffins in the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 325°F. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the streusel is cooked, the muffins are tall and golden brown. To test for doneness, use a skewer and poke at around the 30-minute mark. It should come out with a few moist crumbs. If it's wet, it needs to bake longer. If it comes out completely dry, that means the muffins are overbaked and dry.
- Once the muffins are done cooking, allow them to sit in the pan for a couple of minutes before moving them to a cooling wire rack. Serve warm and enjoy! Best served the same day.
Video
Notes
Notes
1. Make Ahead Instructions: For longer storage, freeze muffins for up to 3 months. Allow thawing overnight inthe refrigerator, then bring to room temperature or warm up in the microwave if desired. 2. Milk: I used buttermilk and highly suggest it, but in a pinch, you can use milk. 3. Flour: For best taste and texture, don't skip the cake flour. It really contributes the tender crumb to this muffin. 4. Berries: It's important to not use pre-frozen berries as they contain too much water. Freeze your own fresh berries. 5 Why the Initial High Temperature? The hot burst of air will spring up the top of the muffin quickly, then the inside
of the muffin can bake for the remainder of the time. This helps the muffins rise nice and tall.