These homemade blueberry muffins are absolutely amazing. The crumb is so moist and tender and covered in lemon zest and sugar.

I have another blueberry muffin recipe on this blog. They’re good. But these? These muffins are phenomenal.

The crumb is so moist and tender. Honestly, I’ve never had a homemade muffin that was so delicious.

This might be made easier by the fact that these muffins are topped with a wonderful combination of lemon flavor and sugar. But really, the muffins themselves take the cake and I’m excited to try the basic muffin recipe with other toppings (like chocolate chips).

The great thing about these delicious bites is that they can be made with fresh or frozen berries.

Since I live in a winter tundra with a poor selection of fresh produce and I’m not willing to pay $36 for a pint of substandard fresh berries, I opted to use frozen…and it turned out great.

Blueberry Muffins

Yield: 12-16 muffins

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 28 minutes

Total time: 43 minutes

Ingredients

Lemon Sugar Filling:

• ⅓ cup (71 g) sugar
• Zest of one lemon

Cake:

• 2 cups frozen berries or 2 cups fresh berries
• ⅛ cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 1/2 cups (355 g) all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 4 tablespoons (57 g) butter, melted and slightly cooled
• ¼ cup vegetable or canola oil
• 1 cup yogurt
• ½1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. To make the topping, whisk together the sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl and set aside.
2. For the muffins, place a rack in the middle position and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a standard muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Rinse 1 cup frozen berries under cold water and spread on a double layer of paper towels to dry. Bring the remaining 1 cup berries and 1 teaspoon sugar to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, mashing with a spoon a few times and stirring frequently, until the berries are broken down and the mixture is thick and reduced to about 1/3 cup, about 6 to 8 minutes.
4. Transfer to a small bowl and let cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.
5. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Place the dried berries on the paper towels into the flour mixture. Beat remaining 1 1/8 cups sugar and eggs in a medium bowl until thick, about 45 seconds. Slowly beat in butter and oil until combined. Beat in buttermilk and vanilla until combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold egg mixture into flour mixture until moistened. Dough will be lumpy with some dried flour spots; do not overmix. This is key to moist, tender muffins.
   Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, fill muffin cups until about 3/4 full. Place 1 teaspoon cooked berry mixture in center of each piece of dough. Using a skewer (or chopstick), gently fold red fruit filling into dough in a figure-eight motion. Sprinkle lemon sugar evenly over muffins.
   Bake until tops are golden brown and just set, 17 to 18 minutes. Cool muffins in muffin pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Notes

Blueberries: I’ve made these with fresh or frozen blueberries…both work great, but use fresh blueberries if you can

Blueberry Syrup: I’ve also made these by skipping the blueberry syrup step and mixing both cups of blueberries into the flour mixture. You don’t get the delicious effect of the blueberry syrup on the muffin, but they come together quicker and are packed with blueberries (you can still top them with the lemon-sugar mixture).