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Best Blueberry Muffins Ever: Double Blueberry Muffins with a Sweet Sour Cream Drizzle

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The Tough Cookie | Best Blueberry Muffins Ever: Double Blueberry with a Sweet Sour Cream Drizzle | thetoughcookie.comThese are the best blueberry muffins ever! Trust me, I have been working on this recipe for weeks! Ever since I first decided that I wanted to post about blueberry muffins, I’ve made batch after batch after batch of blueberry muffins, determined to come up with the ultimate recipe. Not only have I tried several of ‘the best’ blueberry muffin recipes that are available on the world wide web, I also compared different recipes, trying to find a formula to create the perfect blueberry muffin.

And I think I found it. It took me a while, but I got there eventually!

I’ve experimented with the amount of blueberries. I’ve played around with the amount of baking powder. I’ve tried muffins with milk, buttermilk, sour cream and various combinations of the three. I’ve tried some of the most popular blueberry muffin flavorings, including vanilla, cinnamon and lemon. I’ve struggled with oven time and temperature in order to get those perfect bakery style muffin tops. And don’t even get me started on the ratio between the dry and wet ingredients. I’ve tested it all! For the last few weeks, I’ve been taste testing blueberry muffin after blueberry muffin…

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it…

The result: these sky high double blueberry muffins with a sweet sour cream glaze!

The Tough Cookie | Best Blueberry Muffins Ever: Double Blueberry with a Sweet Sour Cream Drizzle | thetoughcookie.comThese are really the best blueberry muffins ever!

Like I said: they’re huge, with perfect bakery style muffin tops. And bakery style muffin tops are a must! I’m not even going to pretend to like pathetic, flat, cupcake-like muffins. The top is the best part of the muffin! I don’t care if it’s the same batter; muffins with big tops are so much more tempting than the flat ones.

So what’s the secret to those big tops? First of all, the muffin batter should be thick and spoonable instead of pourable – which this batter is. Secondly, the muffin tin’s cups should be filled all the way to the tops. Because the batter is so thick, the cups won’t overflow during baking. Promise! Finally, the oven temperature is very important if you want perfect muffin tops. The first few minutes of the baking time, these muffins are exposed to a temperature of a whopping 225°C/440°F! This initial temperature ensures that the tops of the muffins bake before the muffins have time to rise. After eight minutes of baking, the temperature is cranked down to 175°C/350°F, which allows the muffins to rise properly. As the muffins rise, the baked tops are pushed up, creating the high muffin tops!

Makes sense, right?

The Tough Cookie | Best Blueberry Muffins Ever: Double Blueberry with a Sweet Sour Cream Drizzle | thetoughcookie.comAnyway, then there are the blueberries. These muffins have an extra blueberry kick to them. Not only are they stuffed with those cute, delicious, little berries, they are also topped with a delicious, homemade blueberry jam swirl! This not only ensures that those great, big muffin tops look amazing, this also means that these muffins are packed with fresh blueberry flavor!

But these beauties not only taste of blueberries!

There’s also some vanilla and a hint of cinnamon in there. I’ve tried the whole lemon thing, but I didn’t like it. Not with vanilla, not with cinnamon, not on its own. Blegh! The lemon blueberry muffins tasted just like the lemon soap I do the dishes with. Not that I’ve ever been unfortunate enough to taste that stuff, but muffins that remind me of soap are never a good thing, so I ditched the lemon…

Cinnamon and vanilla it is! The combination is to die for!

Especially paired with the taste of the muffin batter/crumb/whatever-you-want-to-call-the-fluffy-muffin-part, which is deeeelicious! After a lot of playing around with milk, buttermilk and sour cream, I eventually settled on a combination of buttermilk and sour cream. Why? Well, not only does this combination make the muffin incredibly moist and delicious, it also gives the muffin a hint of freshness that pairs beautifully with the blueberries. Plus, it works amazing with the cinnamon and vanilla!

The Tough Cookie | Best Blueberry Muffins Ever: Double Blueberry with a Sweet Sour Cream Drizzle | thetoughcookie.comBut a muffin isn’t complete without a topping of some sort…

I’ve tried topping the muffins with sugar. Granulated sugar, cane sugar, cinnamon sugar… You name it, I’ve tried it. I kind of liked the crunch on top of the muffin, but I found the sugary toppings also a bit overwhelming. So, I tried streusel. I love streusel. It’s versatile, it’s delicious and it’s also a bit crunchy, but I didn’t want the star of this muffin to be the streusel…

I wanted to make a muffin that was amazing and delicious and addicting on its own!

That’s when I though of this glaze. It’s sweet, it’s got a little vanilla in it, it’s tangy, it complements the flavors that are in the muffin… In other words, it is perfect! It tastes just like cream cheese frosting, but it’s a lot runnier, so you can easily drizzle it over the muffins.

It’s amazing!

The Tough Cookie | Best Blueberry Muffins Ever: Double Blueberry with a Sweet Sour Cream Drizzle | thetoughcookie.comSo make these today! You won’t regret it! Trust me, I know blueberry muffins… I haven’t had much else these past couple of weeks. And hey, I’ve even tested these against the ‘Best Blueberry Muffins’ from America’s Test Kitchen. These muffins are so much better!

Enjoy!

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5.0 from 6 reviews
Double Blueberry Muffins with a Sweet Sour Cream Drizzle
 
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Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 10
Ingredients
For the jam:
  • 95g (or ½ cup) fresh or frozen blueberries
  • ½ teaspoon granulated sugar
  • ½ teaspoon water
For the batter:
  • 250g (or 2 cups) all-purpose flour
  • 180g (or ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons) granulated sugar
  • ½ teaspoon of table salt
  • 1 tablespoon of baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 90ml (or ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons) sunflower oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • 80ml (or ⅓ cup) buttermilk
  • 100g (or ⅓ cup + 5 teaspoons) sour cream
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • 160g (or about ¾ cup + 1 tablespoon) frozen blueberries
  • 1 extra teaspoon of all-purpose flour
For the drizzle:
  • 30g (or 2 tablespoons) sour cream
  • 25g (or a little over 3 tablespoons) powdered sugar
  • one drop of vanilla extract
Instructions
Start with the jam:
  1. Combine the ingredients for the jam in a small saucepan. Heat over low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. If using frozen berries, keep heating over low heat until the berries are soft enough to squash against the bottom of the pan with a fork. If using fresh berries, immediately squash the berries against the bottom of the pan with a fork.
  2. Crank the heat up to medium-high. Once the berries are cooking, turn the heat down and cook the berries for about 5 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened and has reduced to about two tablespoons. Stir frequently with a rubber spatula, scraping the sides of the pan as you stir, to prevent the fruit from burning.
  3. Transfer to a small plate (spreading the jam onto a plate ensure that it will cool faster) and allow to cool to room temperature.
In the meantime, make the batter:
  1. Preheat the oven to 225°C/440°F and line a muffin tin with parchment paper (or line it with muffin liners. I usually don’t just butter the pan because I can never get the muffins out in one piece when I do).
  2. In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Stir together and set aside.
  3. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until well combined. Add the buttermilk, the sour cream, the oil and vanilla and whisk to combine.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk until just incorporated. The batter doesn’t have to be smooth; it’s actually best if there are still some small flour lumps.
  5. To the bowl of the dry ingredients, add the blueberries and the extra teaspoon of flour and stir together with a fork until all the berries are coated with flour. Add the coated berries to the batter and fold together with a rubber spatula.
  6. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each cup all the way to the top with batter. Spoon a little of the cooled jam onto the batter in the muffin cups and use the tip of a sharp knife to swirl the jam into the batter a bit.
  7. Bake in the middle of the oven for 8 minutes, then crank the oven temperature down to 175°C/350°F (without opening the oven door) and bake for another 15-20 minutes, or until the muffin tops are golden and firm and a tester inserted into the center of each muffin comes out clean.
  8. Take the muffin tin out of the oven and allow the muffins to cool for about half an hour in the tin before taking the muffins out of the pan and placing them on a wire rack to cool completely.
As the muffins cool, make the sweet sour cream glaze:
  1. In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, powdered sugar and vanilla. The glaze should be runny. If you want to, you can add more sugar to make it a little thicker (but bear in mind that this will also make your glaze sweeter).
  2. Drizzle the glaze over the still slightly warm muffins and serve immediately. As all muffins, these are best served fresh! Enjoy!

 

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Comments

  2. Hello Nila

    can i use fresh blueberries for the whole recipe, even the one used to fold into the batter (method step 5)

    thanks

    • Hi Angie, I personally haven’t tried these with fresh blueberries yet, because blueberries weren’t in season when I developed this recipe 🙂 However, I think fresh blueberries would be great! The reason why frozen berries need to be frozen is that they become very moist and juicy once they’ve had time to thaw. Fresh blueberries, like frozen berries that haven’t thawed yet, are dry, so I don’t think using fresh instead of frozen will be a problem.

      Let me know how the muffins turn out!

  3. Is sunflower oil the only oil that can be used? Could I sub canola without changing the flavor?

    • Hi Sue, canola oil is fine! In fact, any flavorless vegetable oil will do 😉

      Let me know how they turn out!

    • Thank you so much Shirley! I’m so glad you like the recipe! And TGIF, because that means that I can have these muffins for breakfast tomorrow 🙂

  6. Thank you so much for this amazing recipe!!! It is the first time my muffins look great!!! My husband devoured one!!! Keep up the great work!! So glad I found you!!!

  7. I made these yesterday and they have all been scuffed already, actually there were fights over who would have the last one! I have to say that this really was the best muffin recipe that I have come across. Thank u sooooo much for this lovely recipe, I’m now going to check out your other ones.

  8. would the muffins freeze well. We are having a brunch and I need to make ahead . I would place them overnight in fridge and put out morning of brunch to come to room temp and to drizzle topping on. Thanks

  9. Hello, I tried these last night. They taste better this morning ! I added a bit of almond extract. Only thing though, the tops did raise a bit but they kinda spread lol. I wanted the perfect top ! It was my first time making muffins. Also, my oven is quite misleading, I needed more time than what you put. Though I wonder if I should have, as the top is just a tad hard, not too much. Also, I don’t know if it did anything, the ONLY buttermilk I found was low fat. I didn’t work the batter too much yet the ingredients settled on their own , there were not many clumps left… Next time maybe I’ll add more flour ?
    I will be bringing them to work…wish me luck lol !

  10. You should get on it tout de suite ! Loool. I started about 3 days ago, and I have to say, it’s become quite the obsession. I can’t stop. I have made 2 batches with Rum Agricole (I’m from the French West Indies) using Madagascan vanilla pods and Tahitian vanilla (From Tahiti) and another batch with Madagascan and Mexican pods ! They already smell gorgeous and the color is already changing. I will be making another batch with Ugandan and Indonesian pods with vodka, then rum. I told you, obsessed much ?! 😀 . The powder turned out to be perfect. In order to make it you need, extract B vanilla pods (or extract grade) and a coffee/nut grinder. And you grind until the powder gets really fine and the big chunks are gone ! I bought the pods at vanillamart.co.uk . They are out of the extract grade pods so had to get them somewhere else. I have read sooo much about the whole extraction process, amazing information and it gets addictive. vanillareview.com has so much info on the subject !

  11. Delicious! I was too lazy to make the jam or the glaze, (I felt guilty enough as it was) but they were just beautiful and delicious. I didn’t have enough baking cups so I just buttered a nonstick pan and they came right out with no problem at all. I’m curious to try them using brown sugar instead of white!

  12. Hey! I made these muffins and oh my they taste delish but they didnt all rise, the top were a bit crispy so wondering what your thoughts are? Oven too hot? I’ve got a picture but don’t think I can upload it! Xxxx

  13. Hi, just wanted to let you know that this is easily the best blueberry muffin recipe EVER! I’ve made several batches now and they are always well received when I share the love. My personal tweak is to bake at the higher temperature for 10 minutes for a firmer crust. Thank you so much for the obvious effort you put in to come up with this recipe.