There is something about classic culinary pairings that just seems to border on the sublime.
These scrumptious sourdough blueberry lemon muffins are no exception to that!
What is it about the sweet tart of blueberries married with the tang of lemon that knocks it out of the park?
I may never know the science behind it, but boy oh boy, do I know it’s true!
This family favorite recipe is perfect for using your discard sourdough starter when you feed it.
Course, it doesn’t have to be discard. You could always plan ahead to make these. But the starter doesn’t need to be active.
In fact, you could just pull it straight from the fridge if you wanted to.
Go grab your apron, and let’s make up a batch!
Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins
- 3 cups unbleached flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2/3 cup homemade buttermilk
- 2/3 cup melted butter
- 1/2 cup sourdough starter, unfed
- 2 eggs, slightly beaten
- 1 tsp lemon extract
- 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, or 1/2 pint home canned blueberries
- cupcake papers (optional)
Topping
- 1 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup flour
- 1/2 cup cold butter
- 3 tsp lemon zest
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Grease muffin cups or line with cupcake papers.
I love these sweet tulip cupcake papers from Paper Baking Cup Co
. They give your finished muffins such an elegant look.
aren’t these cupcake liners cute?
Take about 2 Tbsp of the flour and toss with the blueberries in a separate bowl.
That will keep the fresh berries from coloring the batter. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do a whole lotta good for frozen or canned berries. As you will see in the pictures…
Let’s start by melting the butter. I like to use my cast iron sauce pot to melt it.
I just put it in the oven while it’s preheating, and Presto! Melted butter. Just like magic.
Here it is in action…
In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
And in a large bowl, mix up the starter, melted butter, eggs, lemon extract and buttermilk.
Mix the dry ingredients, a little at a time, beating well after each addition.
The batter should be stiff. But if it’s hard to stir, add another Tbsp or so of the buttermilk so you can get everything mixed up well.
Now gently fold in the blueberries.
See what I mean about the berries coloring the batter?
I like to use a cookie scoop to put the batter into the cupcake liners. This is the size that I use the most.
Scooping the sourdough blueberry muffin batter into the cupcake liners
Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cups for great zonking big muffins, or 18 muffin cups for more normal sized ones. You could even make 24 and they would be perfectly reasonable sized.
I went with the 18…
Now let’s work on the topping.
If you want to leave off the topping to cut down on the sugar, these blueberry muffins are still pretty amazing! Just add the lemon zest in when you mix up the dry ingredients.
The butter should be really cold.
Using a pastry blender or 2 forks, cut the butter into the lemon zest, flour, and sugar so it’s well combined. It should look like crumbs.
Topping all ready to go
Divide the topping between the muffins.
Press it down a little bit. Gently.
I will caution y’all here. If you are going to be making the 12 ginormous muffins, you could probably cut the topping recipe in half.
If we’re going to be perfectly honest, you could probably do that no matter how many you’re making…
All ready to go into the oven
Now put those guys into the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
Check to see if they’re done with a toothpick. If you poke the toothpick in the top and it comes out clean the muffins are done.
Take them out of the oven and turn them out onto a cooling rack to cook.
Ready to go on the cooling rack
You can serve these warm or cold. Warm is better, of course.
And even better-er is eating them warm and cut in half with butter spread on them.
Just a suggestion. 🙂
You’re welcome.
Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 cups unbleached flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2/3 cup homemade buttermilk
- 2/3 cup melted butter
- 1/2 cup sourdough starter unfed
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp lemon extract
- 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries or 1/2 pint home canned blueberries
- cupcake papers optional
Topping
- 1 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup unbleached flour
- 1/2 cup butter cold, cut into cubes
- 3 tsp lemon zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Grease muffin cups or line with cupcake papers.
- Take about 2 Tbsp of the flour and toss with the blueberries in a separate bowl.
- In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, sea salt, and baking powder.
- And in a large bowl, mix up the starter, melted butter, eggs, lemon extract, and buttermilk.
- Mix the dry ingredients, a little at a time, beating well after each addition.
- The batter should be stiff. If it's hard to stir, add a Tbsp more of buttermilk.
- Now gently fold in the blueberries.
- Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cups for great zonking big muffins, or 18 to 24 for more normal sized ones.
Topping
- The butter should be really cold. Cut it into cubes.
- In a small mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, and lemon zest.
- With a pastry blender or 2 forks, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it's well combined. It should look like crumbs.
- Divide the topping between the muffins.
- Press it down a little bit. Gently.
- Now put those guys into the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
- Check to see if they're done with a toothpick. If you poke the toothpick in the top and it comes out clean the muffins are done.
- Take them out of the oven and turn them out onto a cooling rack to cook.
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