(with optional adjustments for adding sourdough starter)
As promised in a previous post about how to use sourdough starter discard, here is my favourite recipe for blueberry muffins. Since probably only some of you are doing sourdough right now, I am going to post the basic recipe and add optional adjustments for adding in some sourdough starter discard.
These muffins, from the Cooks Illustrated cookbook, get a really good rise and are not too dense in texture. Their recipe uses sour cream, but I use plain yogurt because I tend to have that on hand for baking. You get a nice rise from the acidity in the yogurt and a good flavour from the melted butter. Since you don’t have to cream the butter, they come together very quickly. The blueberries are added to the flour mixture before adding to the batter, which prevents them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin.
Today I made a batch of muffins with sourdough starter as well as a batch of the regular recipe to see the difference side-by-side. My mom suggested letting the batter rest for 30 minutes to let the gluten relax before baking them and helps to offset potential over-mixing. She does this with her muffins and is able to get nice domed tops. I tried that as well today. It worked well with the regular batch but the sourdough batch tops deflated after bringing them out of the oven. After a bit of research, I think I just didn’t cook that batch long enough. I was in a bit of a rush this morning so I probably took them out sooner than I should have. The sourdough muffins rise a lot more and get bigger than the regular ones so I think I needed to adjust the cooking time a bit for those ones.
Because they get much bigger, if you’re doing the sourdough batch, you might consider putting less batter in each muffin cup and baking 18 muffins or increasing the cooking time by up to 5 minutes to ensure the gluten structure is properly formed and the tops don’t deflate. Even with the flat tops, the muffins still tasted great and had a very light, cake-like texture.
As always, I have given the flour in both volume and weight measurements. I weigh my flour for better texture. I also gave the weight for the butter as this is an easy way to measure it.
Blueberry Muffins
My favourite quick and easy blueberry muffin recipe. These are a wonderful breakfast treat!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350F
- Grease a 12 cup muffin tin.
- Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl.
- In large bowl, whisk egg until light-coloured, about 20 seconds.
- Add sugar and whisk vigorously until thick and homogeneous, about 30 seconds.
- Add melted butter in 2 or 3 steps, whisking to combine after each addition.
- Add yogurt in 2 steps, whisking until combined.
- Add blueberries to the dry ingredients and gently toss to combine.
- Add to yogurt mixture and carefully fold with rubber spatula until batter comes together and berries are evenly distributed. Small spots of flour may remain and batter will be thick. Do not overmix.
- Scoop into prepared pan and bake 25-30 minutes, rotating the tin halfway through baking, until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean and tops are nicely browned.
- Let cool in pan 5 minutes before either turning out onto cooling rack to cool or enjoying warm.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, whisk egg until mixed and light in colour, about 20 seconds.
Add sugar and whisk vigorously until well combined and almost white in colour, about 30 seconds.
Add butter in 2-3 steps, whisking to combine after each addition.
Add yogurt in 2 steps, whisking to combine after each addition.
If adding sourdough starter, add this now.
Whisk until well combined.
Gently stir blueberries into dry ingredients to help stop them from falling to the bottom of your muffins.
Pour dry ingredients over wet ingredients and gently fold to combine until only a few dry spots remain and blueberries are distributed. Do not over mix! If you have time, let the batter rest for 30 minutes to ensure domed tops.
Scoop batter into prepared muffin tin. An ice cream scoop works well for this.
Muffin tins will be quite full. For sourdough, you could divide into more muffin tins.
Bake, rotating pan halfway through until muffin tops are well browned and toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.
Muffin made with sourdough starter. Notice the cake-like texture with lots of holes. It gets a nice additional flavour from the starter.
Muffin made with the regular batter. This one has a more muffin-like texture. My daughter though these ones had a more buttery flavour.
