The Sourdough Blueberry Lemon Muffins You've Been Missing

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 flavor 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 sourdough discard starter.

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

Muffin Ingredients

• 3 cups unbleached flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2/3 cup homemade buttermilk
• 2/3 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup sourdough starter, unfed
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, or 1/2 pint home canned blueberries
• cupcake paper liners (optional)

Streusel Topping Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup cold butter
• 3 teaspoon lemon zest

NOTE: This sourdough lemon blueberry muffin recipe makes 24 normal sized muffins or 12 large. And if you want little baby blueberry muffins, use the mini cupcake tins and you’ll get about 48 mini muffins.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Grease muffin tin or line with cupcake paper liners.

Take about 2 Tablespoons 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.

In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

And in a large bowl, whisk up the starter, melted butter, eggs, lemon extract and buttermilk.

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet 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.

You could also use a stand mixer with the paddle attachment if you don’t want to mix the batter by hand.

Now gently fold in the blueberries.

I like to use a cookie scoop to put the batter into the cupcake pan.

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.

Sprinkle the streusel topping over the tops of the sourdough blueberry muffins. Divide it evenly between them.

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…

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 wire rack to cool.

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.