A blueberry lovers muffin, these blueberry lemon muffins are light, moist and buttery, with a touch of lemon and a full pint of blueberries packed into them!
Why I love these blueberry lemon muffin recipe!
These blueberry and lemon muffins are everything I want from a blueberry muffin. They are a light and moist cake style muffin, beautifully buttery and with a touch of lemon zest to brighten the flavour. And best of all, these muffins are chock full of blueberries.
I also love that these muffins are made with pretty basic pantry items. No need for sour cream or yogurt. These muffins are made with things you probably always have around. (Even if you don’t have a lemon, you can just skip the lemon and make delicious, straight-up blueberry muffins).
You’ll be able to pack a whole pint of blueberries into these muffins or if you don’t have any fresh blueberries on hand, frozen, un-thawed blueberries are just fine.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Baking Powder: Just a reminder to make sure your baking powder is always fresh, for best results. While baking powder doesn’t go bad, per se, it does lose its potency over time. I like to replace mine every 6 months. To test your baking powder, if you aren’t sure how long yours has been around, add a 1/4 tsp of your baking powder to 1/2 cup of hot water. If it fizzes, you’re good to bake.
Blueberries: With decent fresh blueberries available year round, fresh is my first choice for these muffins. If only frozen blueberries are on hand, go ahead and use then, unthawed, just allow a few minutes more baking time, as noted in the Recipe TIps.
Lemon: Freshly grated lemon zest is best, but if you have no fresh lemon at hand, but you have lemon juice in the fridge, add about 2 Tbsp of lemon juice to the batter, reducing the amount of milk by that same amount. You can also omit the lemon completely and just go for a straight-up blueberry muffin.
Butter: Use either salted or unsalted butter here. If using salted butter, reduce the added salt to 1/4 tsp.
White Sugar: I don’t find these muffins overly sweet. I always suggest that people try recipes with the recommended amount of sugar first time. From there, you can best judge if you’d like to reduce the sugar and by how much.
Milk: Any variety of dairy milk is fine here. I generally use whole or 2% milk. I haven’t tested these muffins with non-dairy milks, though I suspect it would work without issue.
If you want to use buttermilk instead of regular milk, adjust for the acidity of buttermilk by adding a 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and reducing the baking powder to 1 3/4 teaspoons.
Recipe Tips
- Be sure to take your butter and eggs out of the fridge about 30-45 minutes before baking. You want your butter to be just room temperature – no more or no less. Test by gently pressing on the butter with your index finger. If you leave an imprint in the butter, you’re good to go. (And yes, there is such as thing as too soft butter for baking. You never want to use super soft butter for baking, as it will create an oily/greasy result.)
- These muffins don’t need paper muffin liners, unless you prefer to use them. Greasing the muffin tins well is all you need to do.
- Be sure to grease the top of your muffin pans, as well as the cups. As these muffins will cook over the top, greasing there as well makes it easier to remove them later.
- If starting with frozen, un-thawed blueberries, allow a bit of extra baking time, as the cold berries will slow the cooking process slightly.
How to Measure the Flour
Measuring the flour is one of the most important parts of any baking recipe. Follow this easy method for best results …
- Stir the flour in its storage container (never scoop directly from the bag!).
- Using a large spoon, spoon flour into a dry (usually metal) measuring cup until it rises over the top of the measuring cup.
- Using the back, flat-edge of a knife, swipe across the top of the measuring cup, allowing the excess to fall back into the storage container.
Making ahead, storing and freezing
These muffins (like most muffins) are best enjoyed on the day they are baked, but will keep another day or so when stored in an airtight container at room temperature.
These muffins will also freeze well up to 2 months.
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Get the Recipe: Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt, reduce to 1/4 tsp if using salted butter
- 3/4 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, or vanilla bean pasta
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest, freshly grated
- 3/4 cup milk
- 2 cups fresh blueberries, or un-thawed frozen blueberries, about 1 pint, plus a bit more for putting on top
- Confectioners’/Icing Sugar, for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F (regular bake setting/not fan assisted) with rack in centre of oven.
- Grease/spray 12 muffin cups, greasing both the cups and the top of the muffin tin. Set aside. *You can use paper muffin liners if you like.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and lemon zest until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl a couple of times.
- With mixer on low, add 1/3 of the flour mixture, then 1/2 of the milk, another 1/3 of the flour, the rest of the milk, then the rest of the flour mixture. Beat until smooth.
- Using a spatula, gently fold in the blueberries until combined.
- Using an ice cream scoop, divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. Place 3 blueberries in a the centre of each muffin, gently pressing them into the batter.
- Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown around the outside and a tester inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan set on top of cooling racks for about 10-15 minutes. Carefully remove muffins from pan, by running a knife under the muffin top edges then gently lifting out. Place on cooling rack to cool completely.
- Serve garnished with a dusting of confectioners/icing sugar, if desired.
Notes
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
I made these delicious muffins yesterday, and received a wonderful Raspberry muffin in my inbox today. A very happy surprise! And yes, these Blueberry lemon muffins are…Simply Perfect! Thank-you!
So glad you enjoyed these ones, Susan :) Thanks so much!
These are fantastic!! Thanks for the recipe!
So glad you enjoyed them, Jola :) Thanks!
Could I sub sour cream or yogurt for the milk?
Hi Gail, I haven’t tried it in this recipe. Generally it is fine to swap out sour cream or yogurt for milk (in the same quantity). I suspect the batter will be thicker, so I’m not sure if that will affect the finished muffin at all, but probably not in any way that would be bad. Just different :)
This is by far the best muffin recipe
I have ever made! Absolutely delicious!
So glad to hear :) Thanks so much!
This is literally the BEST muffin recipe I’ve ever tried. I’ve got a screenshot of it and will use it as a base for all of my fruit muffins.
Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed them, Kim :) Thanks so much!
LOVED your orange cranberry muffins!! These seems similar but quantities a little different. Wondering if they’ll be ok with only 2 eggs?
Hi Andy and thanks :) I haven’t tried this recipe with fewer eggs. I suspect it would result in an edible, but more dense muffin. Generally, if you want to reduce the eggs in a baking recipe, you may want to replace it with something- applesauce or yogurt generally work (about 1/4 cup-ish), though I haven’t tested that either :) If you try it with 2 eggs, let me know how it turns out.
I have made this recipe many times..today I changed slightly. I removed 2 tablespoons of the granulated white sugar and replaced with 2 tablespoons of Lavender Vanilla sugar. A wonderful subtle flavour … muffins were so good !!
Sounds lovely Candy! Thanks so much :)
Well not reading properly got me again. Messed up and added all the wet ingredients all at once and mixed…. milk included:( the batter is super dense and I’m just hoping at this point they are edible and not a complete waste (I’m so sad)
I don’t think it will be fatal :) Let me know how they worked out!
Hi, can I use dried berries instead? Fresh ones are hard to come by in my part of the world.
Hi Kat and yes, I think dried berries would be fine :) Enjoy!