What’s the secret to a good muffin?
Lumps.
It’s crucial to leave a few lumps in the muffin batter, or in other words, to refrain from overstirring.
The problem is that with each stir, you develop gluten.
Gluten development is great for bread or pasta, but too much gluten isn’t good for cakes, muffins, or other baked goods because it makes them tough.
As long as you stir appropriately, you will be rewarded with some killer muffins. Meyer lemon and blueberry go beautifully here. If you can’t find any Meyer lemons, try mixing some lemon and orange zest.
Yields 1 dozen muffin
Ingredients:
8 oz all purpose flour (about 1.5 cups)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
Zest of 2 meyer lemons
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 extra large egg
1/3 cup milk
2 cups blueberries
Streusel crumb topping (recipe below)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners. Prepare the streusel crumb topping (recipe below).
Whisk to combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and meyer lemon zest. Take a tbsp of the mixture and toss it with the blueberries. This ensures that the blueberries stay suspended throughout the muffin, instead of falling to the bottom:
Place the vegetable oil, egg, and milk in a bowl, and whisk to combine. Add that to the flour mixture, and remember, leave lots of lumps. If there aren’t any lumps whenever you are using the muffin method of baking, you have overmixed and invited more gluten (and toughness) to the party than was welcome. Don’t worry, a few lumps will bake out.
Dump in the blueberries, and fold them in gently. Use a disher to portion them out into the muffin cups, and sprinkle the crumb topping all over the tops. Bake for 20-22 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with no wet batter. Let them cool, and enjoy!
Streusel Crumb Topping Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
2.5 oz flour (1/2 cup)
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp cinnamon (cinnamon goes beautifully with blueberries)
Dice up the butter into cubes, and work all of the ingredients together with your fingertips, until it forms a bunch of crumbs and clumps. You can now sprinkle it over the tops of your muffins.
Click here for the printable recipe.
Thanks for reading! Have a fabulous weekend =)
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Holy Moly… These look fantastic! I absolutely love lemon anything and I can’t wait to try these…! Thanks for the recipe!!
Thanks! They really are delicious. And I’m a little obsessed with Meyer Lemon!
These look so good. I love the combo of lemon and blueberry…it just screams summer to me!
I love lemon and blueberry…and blueberry with cinnamon too!
I love when a recipe actually calls for lumpy batter — then I don’t have to stress about it! These sound delicious — the tartness of blueberries and the tang of lemon is a winning combo, I’m sure.
LOL Meg, you always make me laugh! Yes, lumps are so important when doing the muffin method.
This looks amazing!! We love muffins at this house, so this is perfect! You could even turn it into a little cake and have this instead of coffee cake, or even dessert! So pretty.
That is such a great idea! You’re totally right…it would make a really nice coffee cake too. Thanks!
You’re so lucky to have so many blueberries. I can just imagine all the goodies you’re going to be able to bake with them. Your muffins already look gorgeous. I have a sweet treat linky party going on at my blog and I’d love it if you’d come by and link your muffins up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/2011/06/sweets-for-saturday-21.html
I know, the blueberries are so cheap too. I really am lucky! I love popping some in a saucepan with some lemon, sugar, and cinnamon…blueberry sauce in 5 minutes! Thanks for the link invitation, sounds fun!
Deliciously delicious!
these look delish! thanks for sharing!
Oh these look so delicious! One of my favorite ways to use up blueberries!
Wow, these look delicious! I’ve always wanted to try making blueberry muffins. Thanks for the recipe!
Hey, I just saw this pic on food porn daily! Win.
Hello. Can’t wait to try these and thanks for posting. One question though, in the muffin recipe as well as the streusal topping the recipe indicates 8 oz of flour but in brackets you have that its 1. 5 cups and in the streusal topping you want 2.5 oz of flour and have in brackets .5 cups. I want to try and measure accurately and am not understanding as 8 oz is 1 cup and 2.5 oz is closer to 1/3 cup… I know measures are different in different places and I just want to know which one to use. If the amount you want in the recipe is 8oz or 1.5 cups I’d love to know as I just can”t wait to try these. Thanks so much!
Hi Karyn! When I measure out flour with the fluffing, scoop, and scrape method, my cups typically measure out as 5oz. If you have a scale, it’s always better to do it by weight, so I post that first. I put the measuring cups there too so people can scoop it. I’m surprised to hear that your flour is measuring as 8 oz for 1 cup. King Arthur Flour for example states that flour should be about 4.25 oz per cup, and I’ve typically heard about 3.5-5.5 oz. 8 oz sounds like a lot. Are you fluffing the flour beforehand? Let me know!
Just made these for company!! So yum and I’m not a huge Lemon fan but it definitely added a freshness to it! Just about as easy as boxed muffins and way more yum! Do you think I could use the same recipe and substitue banana nut? Thanks for sharing!
YAY I’m glad you liked them Jenn. I think doing a banana nut theme could work here, though I’ve never made banana nut muffins so I’m not sure. Do you add banana to the batter? I’m not a fan of bananas so I don’t really know. Sorry I can’t be more helpful!
I’ve been looking for a good blueberry muffin recipe and with the lemon and streusel, pretty sure this one wins! Saving this one for next time I have some good blueberries! Love you blog too!
My husband made this for me last Saturday. It was delicious! It’s keeper recipe!
YAY! I’m so glad!!! How nice that your husband made them for you =)
How many muffins does this recipe make?
Hey Juliette, It makes 12 standard muffins.
Hey, I was wondering if you could use frozen blueberries? Thanks
Hey Jen! You can absolutely use frozen blueberries. You don’t even need to thaw them out before baking!
Hi! I made these muffins last night and they were delicious! I had a question about measuring out the flour. I keep my flour in a big storage container so I scoop it from there into my measuring cup. Not sure if this is the fluff & scoop method but it is pretty loose. My question is when I measured the flour using my scale it was probably only 3/4 cup! I ended up using the 1.5 cup that was in parentheses and that made the batter VERY thick. It worked ok and everything turned out but I wondered if this is how your batter is? 3/4 cup of flour just didn’t seem like enough to make a dozen muffins. Thanks for your help!
Hi Brenda, Thanks for your comment. 3/4 cup measured out from 8 ounces of flour?! Hm…that seems very strange to me. The general rule of thumb is that one cup of flour (fluffed, scooped, leveled off with a knife) is 5 oz. King Arthur Flour says 1 cup is typically between 4.5 and 5.5 oz. When I measure it’s usually around 5oz per cup, so that’s why I said 8 oz, or about 1.5 cups of flour. It sounds like you’ve got a scale (is it a reliable one?) in which case it’s always best to follow the weights rather than the measurements because they can vary a bit. Did I answer your question? I hope so!
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