Sometimes you just need some Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins!
As far as breakfast goes, I am a savory person. I love biscuits and gravy, bacon and eggs, corn beef hash, etc. But now and again, some random thought of blueberries will cross my mind, and I’ll NEED some Sourdough Lemon Blueberry Muffins.
When we were kids, Mom used to buy those little Jiffy blueberry muffin kits. They had a tiny tin of mushed blueberries in the box. It was the best treat to wake up in the morning to the smell of those blueberry muffins. They tasted so good with a bit of butter!
This recipe for Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins reminds me of those delicious mornings as a kid, only, no tin of mushed blueberries here! Just mouth-bursting, fresh blueberries, complimented with a bright lemon zing! I also topped these off with a buttery oatmeal crumble.
If you don’t have a sourdough starter, you can still make this recipe. Just leave it out! They will still be perfectly tasty. If you have a sourdough starter, this recipe is a great place to use some sourdough discard!
Ok! Let’s make some Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins!
Just a few preliminary steps to set yourself up for success.
First, preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line your muffin tin! I found these simple, rustic tulip liners on Amazon. They remind me of something a French Bakery would use and the tall sides keep the muffin from muffin-ing over the top of the pan and sticking!
Speaking of sticking, if you don’t have tall muffin tin liners, you will want to lightly grease the top of your muffin tin, even if you use liners, so the tops will come off the pan after baking.
Secondly, get your oat crumble topping ready to go!
Now for the batter…
Technically, you could just put every one of the ingredients in at once, mix it all up, and dump it in the tins. You would still end up with tasty muffins!
However,
three things are working to raise these sourdough blueberry lemon muffins and give them a nice round top.
The first thing is whipping the butter and sugar together. “Granular sugar, including brown sugars, creamed with butter or any solid fat will aerate a batter. This is an essential step in many recipes. The presence of chemical leaveners such as baking powder will expand the air bubbles present, but creaming the sugar and fat is the most effective way to guarantee a light, evenly textured product.” Understanding Baking – The Art and Science of Baking
Second, of course, are the eggs. They also work to leaven the blueberry muffin batter as well as help them hold their structure when baked!
Thirdly
the baking powder and baking soda play a huge part in making a perfectly risen muffin top!
I recently learned that the baking powder we all use to bake with is double-acting. I mean, it says it on the container but those words didn’t mean anything to my brain so I read it and disregarded it.
It’s kinda cool though! So nerd out with me for a minute if you will…
“Baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate as the base, cream of tartar as the acid, and cornstarch. Because the base and acid react immediately upon the addition of water, cornstarch is added to absorb the moisture and prevent premature activity.
Sodium aluminum sulfate is added to the baking powder formula to make double-acting baking powder. Sodium aluminum sulfate is an insoluble crystalline powder. Although it is acidic by nature, it refuses to interact with sodium bicarbonate unless fully melted, delaying any reaction until it is warmed above 140F.
In double-acting formulas, the moisture-sensitive acid is meant to prime (not leaven) the dough, seeding it with carbon dioxide, by acid, and alkaline reaction. Then the heat-sensitive acid kicks in right as cakes and cookies need it most – about midway through the baking process when softly set batters and doughs threaten to collapse.” Bakerpedia
Science!!! All of these crazy reactions with crystals, proteins, and chemicals have to happen for me to enjoy a sourdough blueberry lemon muffin. I might be weird, but I think it’s neat!
Cool… now that Bill Nye has left the building,
cream the butter and sugar together, add in the eggs, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest/juice.
I used one whole lemon for these muffins. It was just enough zest and juice to make these perfect.
Now for the addition of the sourdough!
I love my sourdough starter.
He’s about 4 years old and his name is Sea Monkey.
You might not find that appetizing lol.
Sourdough starters require constant care and feeding. Somehow, magically (like a sea monkey kit when you were a kid) you add a little water, some flour (hopefully you didn’t feed your sea monkeys flour, just saying) … and bam you’ve got life!
I try my best not to have a lot of sourdough discard. Feels so wasteful to throw it out, so I love it when I can put it in things, like these Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins!
For this recipe, the discard I used was when the starter was at its peak. So the 1/2 cup I put in was still pretty thick. If you’re using a more runny discard, you may need to add just a little more flour to the batter to compensate.
Also, as I said above, if you don’t have a sourdough starter, you can make this recipe exactly as it says, just leave out the sourdough part!
Now for a trick!
I cannot spoon muffin batter into the liners without getting it everywhere. So I use a pastry bag and pipe it in.
If you want to buy Wilton Pastry Bags, that is what I used to fill the muffin tins. They come in handy for a lot of kitchen projects just like this! However, a large Ziploc bag will work too.
I use a glass pitcher to hold the bag while I fill it up, then snip the end off big enough to let the blueberries come out and get to the filling! So much less mess!
Before you put these in the oven, sprinkle on the oat crumble topping, then they’re ready to go!
Bake until golden brown!
Use the good ol’ toothpick test to make sure they’re fully cooked.
Let them sit for 5 minutes before getting them out of the pan and allowing them to finish cooling on a cooling rack.
Of course, these sourdough blueberry lemon muffins are best served warm with butter and a cup of coffee and shared with a friend! Do you like these Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins? Then you might also love my recipe for Sourdough Lemon Poppyseed Muffins! Or click here for other discard ideas!
Hope you enjoy!
Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Equipment
- Kitchenaid Mixer
- Measuring Cups and Spoons
- Rubber Spatula
- Small Bowl
- Muffin Tin
- Muffin Tin Liners
- Piping Bag optional
Ingredients
Muffins
- 1/2 Cup Salted Butter Room Temperature 1/2 Cup is also equal to 8 tbsp, or 113 grams
- 2/3 Cup Sugar
- 2 Eggs Room Temperature
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 1/2 tbsp Lemon Zest
- 3 tbsp Lemon Juice
- 1/2 Cup Sourdough Discard
- 1 1/4 Cup Milk
- 2 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 2 Cups Fresh Blueberries
Oat Crumble Topping
- 6 tbsp Salted Butter Room Temperature
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
- 1/2 Cup Quick Oats
- 1/3 Cup All-Purpose Flour
Instructions
Oat Crumble Topping
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line all 12 cups of the muffin tin with liners.
- In a separate bowl, combine the 6 tbsp of room temperature butter with the 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of quick oats, and 1/3 cup of flour. Stir together until all the ingredients form crumbles. Set aside for later.
For the Muffin Batter
- In the mixer, add 1 stick of butter and 2/3 cup of sugar. Mix on medium-high speed with the paddle attachment until sugar and butter are whipped together.
- Add in the eggs and mix on medium speed until they are incorporated. You may have to scrape down the sides of the bowl at some point to get the ingredients to thoroughly mix.
- Next, add in the teaspoon of vanilla, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 1/2 tbsp of lemon zest, and 3 tbsp of lemon juice. Mix again to combine. I used the juice from one whole lemon and it came out to be right around 3 tbsp.
- After this, add in the 1/2 cup of sourdough discard*, 1 1/4 cups of milk, 2 cups of blueberries and mix.
- Finally, add in the 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 tsp of baking powder, and 1/2 tsp of baking soda, and mix all the ingredients until thoroughly combined and no dry bits of flour can be seen.
Assemble and Bake
- Fill a large piping bag (or ziplock bag) with the muffin batter and cut the tip off making a large enough hole for the blueberries to go through. Alternatively, you can simply spoon the batter into each muffin tin.
- Fill the muffin tins 3/4 of the way full with batter and then sprinkle the oat crumble top evenly over each muffin.
- Place on the middle oven rack and bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until the muffins are golden brown. You'll know they are done when you poke through the center of one of the muffins with a toothpick and the toothpick comes out clean.
- Remove them from the muffin tin and allow to cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, and then enjoy!
Notes
- Maybe you are wondering, “Why do I need to add baking powder & baking soda if I am using an activated sourdough starter? Doesn’t an active sourdough starter raise things on its own?” The answer is yes, and no lol. In this recipe the sourdough is at peak activation – but I’ve probably used what I needed for my bread recipe and the leftover, or discard would just end up in the trash. So I’ve opted to make muffins with it instead. If you wanted to try to make these muffins without baking powder and baking soda, you could…but you would need to let them sit for a very long time for the sourdough starter to work its magic. I’ve opted instead to use baking powder and soda to create an instant chemical reaction to rise the muffins instead of using the power of sourdough! Some other quick bread recipes call for lemon juice or buttermilk – this is because the acidity in these things reacts with the baking powder/ soda and causes the rise. Sourdough by nature is also acidic and therefore causes a similar reaction! Hope this helps!
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