Muffin Recipes that are Moist, Yummy and Flavorful – Sugar Geek Show

Blueberry Muffin Recipe

Elizabeth Marek — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 23:53:12 +0000

Bakery style blueberry muffin recipe

This blueberry muffin recipe packed with juicy blueberries and a touch of lemon zest are just like your favorite blueberry muffins from the bakery.

I absolutely love making muffins. They come together so quickly, they are fun to make with my daughter and they are pretty much fool-proof. This blueberry muffin recipe is based on my basic muffin recipe which produces huge fluffy bakery-style muffins that can be customized to any flavor.

I'm not a big breakfast eater but I love a fresh blueberry muffin and a banana for breakfast when I have the chance. I don't know what it is about blueberry muffins that I love so much but they have been a favorite ever since I was a kid. I used to buy those little boxes of krusteez blueberry muffin mixes from the grocery store for twenty-five cents. OMG that makes me sound so old.

As an adult, my love for blueberry muffins has stuck around. Every time we go out for breakfast or stop for some coffee on a trip, I grab myself a big old blueberry muffin. There's just nothing better than that huge fluffy muffin top and juicy bites of blueberries inside.

I've been determined to re-create my favorite bakery-style blueberry muffins at home and I think I've finally succeeded.

What makes these blueberry muffins so good?

Cake Flour – Makes these muffins super tender and fluffy. If you can’t find cake flour you can use all-purpose flour instead. For every 1 cup (5 ounces) of flour, take out two Tablespoons of flour and replace with cornstarch. Then sift. (only for this recipe, not for my vanilla cake recipe).
Milk and Lemon Juice – Adds a slightly tangy flavor and the acidity of the buttermilk breaks down the gluten in the flour, resulting in a more tender muffin. No buttermilk? Just add 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar to 1 cup of regular milk and let it sit for 10 minutes.
Butter – Gives the muffins a delicious flavor and adds moisture. Use high-quality butter like plugra or kerrigold for the best flavor!
Baking Powder – Muffins take a lot of rising agent to get those big fluffy muffin tops. If you’re at a high-altitude, make sure you make some adjustments.
Bake At A High Temperature – Baking at a higher heat gives these muffins a nice lift and makes them super fluffy.

I like to top my muffins with sparkling sugar. This gives the muffins that bakery-style look at the sugar actual helps keep the muffins moist. Sugar is hygroscopic and attacts moisture from the air which is why baked goods with more sugar in them (like high-fructose corn syrup) stay moister for longer. Not that I’m suggesting you put high-fructose corn syrup in your muffins (yuk).

Can I use frozen blueberries for this muffin recipe?

Yes! You can use frozen or fresh blueberries. It doesn't matter. I use fresh when they are in season because what better way to use up those blueberries right? But for the rest of the year, I use frozen. Don't worry about defrosting your blueberries, they actually work better if they are still frozen. If you defrost them, all that juice will color your batter and make it look grey.

How do I keep my blueberries from sinking in my muffin recipe?

If your blueberries are sinking then chances are your muffin batter is too thin. When the batter goes into the oven and starts warming up, all those big blueberries sink to the bottom. No amount of dusting in flour will keep them from sinking.

Luckily my muffin batter is quite thick so the blueberries don't sink to the bottom and you can see those beautiful berries throughout the muffin when you take a bite.

I absolutely love these lemon blueberry muffins! If you like these, check out these other recipes!

Lemon Cake With Lemon Frosting
Basic Muffin Recipe
Berry Chantilly Cake

Recipe

Lemon Blueberry Muffin Recipe

These lemon blueberry muffins are fluffy, moist and delicious! Just like the blueberry muffins from your favorite bakery.

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 20

Servings muffins

Calories 222kcal

Author Elizabeth Marek

Equipment

Mixer (stand or handheld)

Ingredients

10 ounces unsalted butter
13 ounces granulated sugar
3 large eggs room temperature
2 teaspoon lemon extract
20 ounces cake flour
2 Tablespoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
10 ounces buttermilk
2 Tablespoon lemon zest about 2 lemons
2 ounces lemon juice
3 Tablespoons sanding sugar (optional for sprinkling on top)
8 ounces fresh blueberries

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

IMPORTANT: Make sure all your ingredients are at room temp (see notes at the bottom of the recipe)
Preheat your oven to 400ºF - Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Sift together your flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Add the lemon juice and set it aside.
Cream together your butter and sugar in a medium bowl with your mixer until light and fluffy
Add in your egg, and lemon extract. Continue creaming until pale in color
While mixing on low, add in ⅓ of your flour mixture, then ⅓ of your milk mixture. Repeat two more times until just combined. Do not overmix.
Fold in your blueberries and lemon zest
Fill your liners all the way to the top with muffin batter. Top with more blueberries and sparkling sugar.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until edges begin to slightly brown and a wooden skewer comes out cleanly when inserted into the center of the muffin.
Let your muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes then move them to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.

Notes

Important Things To Note Before You Start

1. Bring all your ingredients to room temperature or even a little warm (eggs, buttermilk, butter, etc) to ensure your batter does not break or curdle.

2. Use a scale to weigh your ingredients (including liquids) unless otherwise instructed (Tablespoons, teaspoons, pinch etc). Metric measurements are available in the recipe card. Scaled ingredients are much more accurate than using cups and help ensure the success of your recipe.

3. Practice Mise en Place (everything in it's place). Measure out your ingredients ahead of time and have them ready before you start mixing to reduce the chances of accidentally leaving something out.

4. If the recipe calls for specific ingredients like cake flour, replacing it with all purpose flour and cornstarch is not recommended unless specified in the recipe that it’s ok. Substituting ingredients may cause this recipe to fail.

Nutrition

The post Blueberry Muffin Recipe appeared first on Sugar Geek Show.

Basic Muffin Recipe

Elizabeth Marek — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 18:42:49 +0000

The best basic muffin recipe to use as a base for infinite flavor combinations

This basic muffin recipe is just like the ones you find in a bakery. These muffins are fluffy, buttery and super simple to customize. Stir in your favorite mix-ins and create endless bakery-style muffin flavors so everyone can have the flavor they want.

My favorite muffins are bakery-style blueberry muffins but my daughter loves chocolate chip muffins. My husband likes to add in dried fruit and nuts like my cranberry almond orange muffins for a quick and healthy start to the day.

This might come as a surprise to some but you don't necessarily need a new recipe for every single variation of baked goods. Most bakers have a perfected base recipe for everything from sugar cookies, vanilla cake, cupcakes, vanilla buttercream frosting and of course muffins.

Then, they tweak that one recipe with different extracts, spices, and mix-ins. Mix-ins are things that don't affect the chemistry of the base recipe like nuts and fruits. Adding in things like pumpkin, banana or chocolate is also possible but can take a bit more testing to make sure the final outcome is still balanced.

From this one base recipe, you can create hundreds of unique flavor combinations! So fun huh! Simply follow the basic muffin recipe below and stir in your favorite additional ingredients.

What makes this the perfect basic muffin recipe

These soft and fluffy muffins get their amazing texture from creaming together the butter and the sugar first, then adding in eggs, then finishing with the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture.

Be careful not to over-mix or you can get tunneling. Tunneling is when the gluten in the flour becomes over-developed and traps air inside the baked good. Tunneling is great for bread, not so great for muffins.

Cake Flour - Makes these muffins super tender and fluffy. If you can't find cake flour you can use all-purpose flour instead. For every 1 cup (5 ounces) of flour, take out two Tablespoons of flour and replace with cornstarch. Then sift. (only for this recipe, not for my vanilla cake recipe).
Buttermilk - Adds a slightly tangy flavor and the acidity of the buttermilk breaks down the gluten in the flour, resulting in a more tender muffin. No buttermilk? Just add 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar to 1 cup of regular milk and let it sit for 10 minutes.
Butter - Gives the muffins a delicious flavor and adds moisture. Use high-quality butter like plugra or kerrigold for the best flavor!
Baking Powder & Baking Soda - Muffins take a lot of rising agent to get those big fluffy muffin tops. If you're at a high-altitude, make sure you make some adjustments.
Bake At A High Temperature - Baking at a higher heat gives these muffins a nice lift and makes them super fluffy.

I like to top my muffins with sparkling sugar. This gives the muffins that bakery-style look at the sugar actual helps keep the muffins moist. Sugar is hygroscopic and attacts moisture from the air which is why baked goods with more sugar in them (like high-fructose corn syrup) stay moister for longer. Not that I'm suggesting you put high-fructose corn syrup in your muffins (yuk).

Muffin flavor combinations

Now for the fun part! Coming up with fun flavors! It's so easy to customize your basic muffin recipe into pretty much anything. Need ideas? Check out the suggestions below. You can add in about 1 cup without affecting the recipe.

If the add-in is very moist, reduce the amount you add in to ½ cup. Muffins with fresh fruit or berries must stay refrigerated to prevent molding.

Berries - blueberries, blackberries, raspberries (fresh or frozen)
Fresh Fruit - Chopped strawberries, peaches, apples, pears (fresh is best)
Nuts - Toasted almonds, candied pecans, macadamia nuts, walnuts, pistachios
Dried Fruit - Cranberries, craisins, strawberries, toasted coconut, cherries
Candy - Chocolate chips, mini M&M, caramel bits

Other ways to customize the basic muffin recipe

Aside from mix-ins, there are other ways to customize your muffin recipe without any major adjustments.

Spices - Add in any amount of spices you like such as cinnamon, clove, ginger or nutmeg to your muffin batter
Zest - Add in fruit zest like lime, lemon or orange to accent your add-ins
Sugar - Replace half or all of your sugar with brown sugar for a warmer flavor
Butter - Replace half or all of the butter with brown butter for a deeper, toastier flavor

What's the difference between muffins and cupcakes?

You might be wondering what the difference is between a muffin and a cupcake. Is there a difference? Some might say a muffin is just a cupcake without frosting. But there are a few other differences as well.

A muffin tends to be a little dryer and denser than a cupcake. It can be savory or sweet (similar to a scone). Replace the white flour with whole wheat and oats and they are considered a healthy breakfast option. A cupcake is meant to taste exactly like a cake but smaller. Very moist, sweet and covered in a frosting of some sort.

Cupcakes are not considered healthy unless you count eating only one cupcake instead of a whole slice a diet plan (which I may or may not be guilty of).

How can you make muffins more moist?

Just because a muffin is meant to be dryer than a cupcake doesn't mean you want to forget about moisture altogether. If your cupcakes seem too dry, you can add in some additional ingredients to make them more moist.

Replace half the milk with yogurt or sour cream for additional moisture and tanginess
Add in ¼ cup applesauce for added moisture, don't worry, this won't make your cupcakes taste like apples.
Replace half the sugar with brown sugar. The molasses in brown sugar adds more moisture and flavor to the recipe.
Replace two tablespoons of sugar with honey, molasses or corn syrup. These ingredients are hygroscopic meaning they attract moisture from the air and keep those muffins nice and moist!
Replace half the butter with vegetable oil. Cream the butter and oil with the sugar as usual. Oil keeps the muffins from tasting dry, especially if they need to stay refrigerated (muffins with fresh fruit)
Keep muffins at room temperature. Unless your muffins have fruit in them, there's not a reason to keep them refrigerated. Refrigeration just dries out baked goods and makes the butter in them cold. Cold butter tends to taste dry in baked goodies.

Recipe

Basic Muffin Recipe

Use this basic muffin recipe as a base for unlimited flavor combinations! These muffins are light, fluffy and buttery. So delicious!

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 20

Servings muffins

Calories 220kcal

Author Elizabeth Marek

Equipment

Mixer (stand or handheld)

Ingredients

4 ounces unsalted butter (½ cup) softened
5 ounces granulated sugar (¾ cup)
2 large eggs room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
10 ounces cake flour (2 cups)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
8 ounces buttermilk (1 cup) room temperature
3 Tablespoons sanding sugar (optional for sprinkling on top)

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

IMPORTANT: Make sure all your ingredients are at room temp (see notes at the bottom of the recipe)
Preheat your oven to 400ºF - Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Sift together your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Cream together your butter and sugar in a medium bowl with your mixer until light and fluffy
Add in your egg and vanilla. Continue creaming until pale in color
While mixing on low, add in ⅓ of your flour mixture, then ⅓ of your buttermilk. Repeat two more times until just combined. Do not overmix.
Fold in your desired mix-ins such as fruit, nuts or spices.
Fill your liners all the way to the top with muffin batter. Top with more mix-ins if desired and sparkling sugar.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until edges begin to slightly brown and a wooden skewer comes out cleanly when inserted into the center of the muffin.
Let your muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes then move them to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.

Video

Notes

Important Things To Note Before You Start

1. Bring all your ingredients to room temperature or even a little warm (eggs, buttermilk, butter, etc) to ensure your batter does not break or curdle.

Nutrition

The post Basic Muffin Recipe appeared first on Sugar Geek Show.

Moist Chocolate Chip Muffins

Elizabeth Marek — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 19:02:27 +0000

Moist and fluffy bakery-style chocolate chip muffins

These chocolate chip muffins are my favorite make-ahead breakfast goodie. Yes, I eat chocolate for breakfast, doesn't everyone? They bake up big, tall and fluffy and stay so moist for days. After baking, I store them in an airtight container on my countertop to enjoy all week. I swear they get even better after the second day!

These delicious muffins are based on my basic muffin recipe that I develop pretty much all my muffin recipes from. They are buttery and super fluffy. I tend to bake mine in a regular-sized cupcake tin but if you want those big bakery-style jumbo-sized chocolate chip muffins, you'll want to use a jumbo-sized pan and paper liners.

This recipe makes 12 regular sized muffins or 6 jumbo-sized muffins.

Ingredients for chocolate chip muffins

Cake Flour - Now I can hear you groaning already. Cake flour in my muffins too? The reason I use cake flour is that they make the muffins extra tender and moist. In this particular case, you can substitute cake flour for all-purpose flour (plain flour) if that is all you have but the muffins will be a bit firmer.

Baking Powder and Baking Soda - The secret to super fluffy muffins is a lot of baking powder! I also use baking soda because of the added acidity from the buttermilk. If you're at a high-altitude, make sure you adjust your baking powder ratios.

Buttermilk - Speaking of buttermilk, I love using buttermilk in my muffins to add a touch of tang and a lot of tenderness! That buttermilk is key to a moist and tender muffin. If you don't have any buttermilk, you can substitute 8 ounces of milk plus one Tablespoon of white vinegar.

Eggs - Provide structure and moisture to the muffin recipe. Make sure you're using large eggs.

Sugar - Sugar makes these muffins deliciously sweet and also keeps them moist.

Vanilla - I flavor my muffins with vanilla but feel free to switch out the extract for another flavor you like but keep in mind that other extracts might be stronger than vanilla and therefore you will need to add less extract.

Sanding Sugar - The secret to keeping muffins nice and moist! Sanding sugar! Sugar attracts moisture from the air and draws it into baked goods. That's why you often see sanding sugar on top of baked goods. It keeps them from drying out! I don't have photos of sanding sugar on these muffins because I was out at the time but trust me, it's awesome! You can see how I use the sanding sugar on my blueberry muffin recipe

Mini Chocolate Chips - I prefer using mini chocolate chips over full-sized chocolate chips because they don't sink to the bottom of the muffin when baking.

How do you make muffins fluffy?

The secret to these super fluffy muffins is lots of leavening (baking powder and baking soda). I know this recipe probably has a lot more than you are used to in a recipe. But you need a lot to get those big muffin tops.

The second way to get fluffy muffins is a hot oven. You want to have your oven at 400ºF so that the top of the muffin browns quickly and locks in that air so that the muffin doesn't collapse.

Have you ever baked a cake and had a huge dome on top of the cake that cracked and got too brown? Chances are the cake was too close to the top of the oven and the oven was too hot. Bad for cakes, great for muffins.

Make sure you fill your muffin liners ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. I know it doesn't make sense but you want those muffins to have a great big muffin top right? So fill them all the way to the top for best results.

How do you make muffins moist?

I hate dry baked goods with a passion so when I'm testing a new recipe, what I'm usually testing for is how moist it is. To make muffins moist you definitely want to use buttermilk if you can. The acidity in buttermilk breaks down gluten and keeps the muffins from getting too tough during mixing.

If you don't have buttermilk you can substitute one cup of milk plus one Tablespoon of vinegar or one cup of sour cream or greek yogurt.

Another way you can add moisture to your muffins is to replace half of the sugar with brown sugar. Brown sugar has molasses in it and molasses attracts moisture. The molasses will add a little bit of a flavor to your muffins that is quite lovely in chocolate chip muffins and will make them taste similar to chocolate chip cookies.

Sanding sugar is another bakery secret for keeping muffins moist. The sugar attracts moisture from the air and locks it inside the muffins. I have a big bottle that I keep on hand for my muffins.

How do you make muffins tender?

Make sure you don't over-mix your muffin batter. The more you mix, the more gluten that develops and the tougher your muffins will become. The best way to avoid over-mixing your muffin batter is to sift together your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a big bowl.

In a separate bowl, cream your softened butter and sugar together until it's light and fluffy with the whisk attachment of your stand mixer or hand mixer. Then add in your eggs and vanilla and continue to whisk until light in color. Make sure your eggs are room temperature, otherwise they could make the butter to cold and cause your batter to curdle.

Lastly, add your flour mixture and buttermilk in thirds. Start with your flour and mix until almost combined, then add buttermilk. You can do this by hand with a spatula and fold gently to avoid over-mixing. Repeat the process two more times until just combined then fold in your chocolate chips.

Recipe

Moist Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe

Moist and fluffy bakery-style chocolate chip muffins can be made in a flash and enjoyed all week long without drying out.

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 20

Servings muffins

Calories 310kcal

Author Elizabeth Marek

Equipment

Mixer (stand or handheld)

Ingredients

4 ounces unsalted butter (½ cup) softened
3 ounces granulated sugar (½ cup)
1.5 ounces brown sugar (¼ cup)
2 large eggs room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
10 ounces cake flour (2 cups)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
8 ounces buttermilk (1 cup) room temperature
7 ounces mini chocolate chips
3 Tablespoons sanding sugar (optional for sprinkling on top)

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

IMPORTANT: Make sure all your ingredients are at room temp (see notes at the bottom of the recipe)
Preheat your oven to 400ºF - Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Sift together your flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Cream together your butter and sugar in a medium bowl with your mixer until light and fluffy
Add in your egg and vanilla. Continue creaming until pale in color
While mixing on low, add in ⅓ of your flour mixture, then ⅓ of your buttermilk. Repeat two more times until just combined. Do not overmix.
Fold in the mini chocolate chips
Fill your liners all the way to the top with muffin batter. Top with more chips if desired and sparkling sugar.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until edges begin to slightly brown and a wooden skewer comes out cleanly when inserted into the center of the muffin.
Let your muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes then move them to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.

Notes

Important Things To Note Before You Start

1. Bring all your ingredients to room temperature or even a little warm (eggs, buttermilk, butter, etc) to ensure your batter does not break or curdle.

Nutrition

The post Moist Chocolate Chip Muffins appeared first on Sugar Geek Show.