Howdy friends,
I’m back with another recipe! If you’ve subscribed to my substack, then you will have already seen this recipe. If you haven’t subscribed to my substack, which is our free newsletter, you can do so >>here<<.
I’m thinking of using substack as my drafting board: like a place to put almost-recipes I’m working on or recipes from other people I’ve tried out and really liked. It’s been a little difficult to balance writing newsletters and school though, so I think the newsletter will be bi-monthly?
Anyways, this muffin recipe has been my go-to for years. It’s super easy and comes together in less than an hour, including baking time if you’re quick! And of course, the muffins are delicious, fruity, fluffy, and perfect.
This recipe uses blueberry jam (and any fruit jam will work), so you don’t have to keep frozen berries stocked or coat your berries in flour. A crazy little thing: maybe I don’t like the blueberries in blueberry muffins.
Regardless, this is the perfect muffin recipe on Sunday night for your Monday morning coffee or Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday work/school snack. Because let’s face it, you will NEED a snack Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, and this is much better than paying $3.50+tax+tip for a dense blah muffin at the bakery across your office.
Blueberry Jam Muffins:
Time: 30 min bake time
Ease: So easy! Also 1 bowl for less clean up.
Equipment: Just a bowl, whisk, spatula. Stand mixer is optional but unnecessary.
Other notes: this version is dairy-free, but I can totally see it made vegan with egg substitute. Egg is mostly acting as a binder and rise in this case.
Serving: this makes 6 hefty 5oz muffins. This is the size I recommend for that bakery-style puffy muffin top look. Without the puffy tops, you can stretch this recipe to make 8-10 smaller muffins.
Ingredients:
- 230g all-purpose flour
- 115g sugar
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp coriander powder
- 100g coconut oil (room temp-ish, should be soft but solid)
- 150g soy milk (dairy milk is fine)
- 1 egg
- 65g blueberry jam for batter + more for layering (any fruit jam works but I mean the recipe says blueberry jam muffins)
- 1/2 tsp lemon and/or orange extract or zest (optional but recommended)
- Use the extract over the zest because sometimes the zest clumps and makes for astringent bites but for some reason orange extract is hard to find in Toronto so zest it is
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Turbinado/demerara sugar for topping (NOT optional)
- optional food-grade lavender for pizazz
Pre-step: Grab a big bowl, a spatula, a whisk, a bunch of spoons, and measuring teaspoons.
- Add all your dry into your large bowl: flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, coriander. Whisk these ingredients until all mixed up nicely. This step is actually very important so take your time!
- Add the solid coconut oil to this bowl. Mix with a whisk until nice and incorporated. Mixture should look mealy.
- If using a stand mixer, mix on low until the coconut oil is in very tiny clumps like a mealy powder.
- NOTE: at this point, the shelf-stable(ish) “muffin mix” portion is done. You could dump this in a plastic bag to go into the pantry (if your home is on the cooler side) or the fridge and save it to make less-fuss muffins later.
- Optional step: Set aside your muffin mix for at least 20 minutes to avoid gluten formation. If you skip this step, your muffins might have more chew from the over-mixing. When I make these muffins for myself, I skip this step all the time.
- After resting, add the wet ingredients to the same bowl: milk, egg, extracts and/or zests. Mix with a spatula (or stand mixer if you are using). Halfway, add the 65g of blueberry jam. It’s important not to over-mix in this step, so be gentle. The batter should be thick and maybe a little clumpy but that’s ok.
- Set aside the batter. Preheat the oven to 350F or 175-177C. Get out a muffin tin, and line with muffin cups.
- Layering the batter: I use two spoons: one to scoop and one to scrape the stuff off the other spoon. Place a small spoonful of batter in each cup. Then, layer a spoonful of blueberry jam. Then sprinkle a little bit of lavender like 4-5 little buds for flavor. And then repeat until the muffin cup is full. I did 4-6 layers of batter-jam-lavender and ended with plain batter on top.
- IMPORTANT: Fill the batter to the brim of the muffin liner to get that bakery-style puffy muffin top look.
- Cover the tops of the muffin batter with turbinado sugar. Be generous and unafraid. Do not use white granulated sugar. Finish with a little bit of lavender for that special garnish.
- Bake for 30 minutes at 350F. Everyone’s oven is different. So toothpick test at after 20-25 minutes doesn’t hurt.
- Enjoy! They are good for like 3 days, airtight room-temp. After which, they will get more and more soggy from the sugar absorbing humidity. Or freeze and enjoy a defrosted muffin later in the week, which may sound gross but you probably buy defrosted pastries all the time at bakeries and don’t even know it.
