Lemon Blueberry Muffins with Cinnamon Crumble Topping
Weather: 36 degrees, drippy and gray
What I’m listening to: Called Me Higher, All Sons & Daughters
In my mind one of the greatest culinary cruelties is that blueberry season is the opposite time of year as Meyer lemon season. They are a magical pairing. Meyer lemons are in season right now, typically December through April. Blueberries aren’t in season until at least early summer in most of the country – and in Alaska, we don’t pick our gorgeous wild Alaska blueberries until August and September. But, you’ll find that a great many Alaskans have stores of blueberries in their freezers, just so that they can experience familiar, bursting flavor of late summer right in the dead of a frigid winter.
This is an adaptation of a recipe that I’ve been making for about 13 years, since I received a cookbook as a gift that had a delectable recipe for lemon blueberry muffins with a cinnamon crumble topping. The great thing about this recipe is that you can use Meyer lemons or your standard lemon and you can use fresh blueberries when they’re in season or frozen when they’re not. I used frozen blueberries (no need to thaw) and the muffins are glorious. I mean, would you just look at all those berries inside?
Oh, and about the crunchy, buttery cinnamon crumb topping. Cinnamon is also amazing with blueberries, in my opinion. People are often skeptical, but it’s true. The topping makes these muffins, so don’t skip it.
If you’re excited about these, you may also like my popular and well-reviewed Blueberry Zucchini Muffins come zucchini season.
Lemon Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
For the Cinnamon Crumble Topping:
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 pinch salt
- ¼ cup cold butter cubed
For the Muffins:
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest I used the zest of two small Meyer lemons
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- ⅓ cup milk
- 1 large egg
- 2 cups blueberries
Instructions
- In a small mixing bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Add the cubed butter and, using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Place topping mixture into the refrigerator while you prepare the muffin batter.
- Preheat oven to 400℉. Line a 12-count muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, and egg until well combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir together until just combined (no need to get all the lumps out when making muffins; over mixing the dough produces dense muffins).
- Gently fold in the blueberries (you will find that there are just as many blueberries as there is batter and you may fear there's not enough batter and you've done something wrong. Don't worry. This is how you want it to be so that your muffins are packed with blueberries as pictured).
- Divide the batter evenly between the twelve muffin cups (I used my medium cookie scoop with heaping portions to do this). Sprinkle each muffin generously with the crumble topping. You will likely have a little topping leftover.
- Bake muffins in preheated oven for 20-22 minutes (if using frozen berries, bake 24-26 minutes instead) until cooked through and golden. Allow to cool at least 15 minutes before removing from the pan.
I love love cinnamon and blueberry together! These muffins look like a ray of summer in the middle of January, and I love them for it.
Oooh I love the combination of lemon and blueberry! It’s definitely one of my favorites. I have to try these!
Lemon and blueberries are a favorite combo of mine, too! And I also love tasting summer in the dead of winter. You’ll have to go to Haines with us this summer and pick some blueberries high on the mountaintops! It’s magical. One of my favorite places on the planet. My family could leave me there for days and I’d be happy as can be…if it weren’t for those pesky bears…
hungryakgirl Let me know when you have dates in mind for your Haines trip… I would seriously consider it. 🙂 Summers are always crazy busy, but you never know!
These look absolutely delicious… I’ll have to try them 🙂
IN LOVE! These look so scrumptious!
These look wonderful! Now I have a good use for the blueberries in the freezer, that must be used up before I move at the end of the month!
These are AMAZING. I repeat; AMAZING. My family finished off the whole pan in one night. Go do yourself a favor and try these now.
pielovereternal Hooray! Your comment brightened my day! Thank you very much for stopping by to let me know.
Found this recipe through our mutul friend Google! Amazingly easy and amazingly good. We’ve made them 3 times in the last 3 weeks – twice as gifts. We’ve substituted up to 1 cup of white wheat flour, which gives just a bit of a rustic, nutty flavor.
I have made these a few times now and they’re a huge hit! I made no substitutions. The batter makes exactly 12 muffins; however, I had enough crumb topping for twice that. No problem, it stores fine in the fridge. I bake them in paper but remove the paper to freeze them (wrapped in plastic wrap, then placed in a large zip top bag). Muffins are a great treat to make with kids because they don’t require any heavy equipment and the mixing is minimal. I have my 15 y/o son grate the lemons because that’s a huge help; the rest takes just minutes to throw together and bake. Yum!
these look yummy! i love love love lemon anything especially with blueberry!made some the other day from a different recipe and they were dense and not what I was looking for so looking for another recipe that I can bake and share with some people! question, can I use coconut oil as a substitute for the veg oil?! looking forward to checking out more recipes from you!
Glad you found me! 🙂
I haven’t tried coconut oil in this recipe, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. If you give it a try, be sure to come back and let me know how they turned out!
I made these this weekend. These were my husband’s words, “Babe these are by far the best muffins I’ve ever had, please make these again!” The man is happy. These muffins are a win. I used coconut oil as a substitute for the vegetable oil. After they cooled a bit the center seamed to sink down. Could that be the coconut oil?
They are in the oven now…..can’t wait to taste. I had a little chopped walnuts left from Christmas baking so I added it to the crumble. I’ll let you know how it tastes.
Love this recipe, thank for share
Wow, so good. And full of flavor