These Blueberry Muffins with Meyer Lemons make for a delicious breakfast or after school snack! The combination of blueberries and Meyer Lemons is a flavour I love and I often try to include it in my baked goods. The crispy muffin top will make you want to go for seconds!!
What are Meyer Lemons?
Meyer Lemons are like regular lemons in shape but they have a deeper yellow skin color, almost tinted with some orange. They taste less acidic than regular lemons and slightly sweeter. This quality makes them the perfect citrus candidate for desserts!
Meyer lemons are a hybrid between regular lemons and mandarins. The hybrid was initially cultivated in China and later on in California before becoming famous in the culinary circles.
I use Meyer Lemons any chance I get, I actually just planted a Meyer Lemon tree in my backyard last year and it is growing:)). So hopefully I’ll have plenty of this delicious fruit one day!!
Smashing Blueberries for Muffins
Once I wash and drain the blueberries, I separate about a quarter of them in a small bowl. I smash the smaller group of blueberries with a fork and set aside. The smashed blueberries will be added to batter and mixed well to have the blueberry flavor throughout the muffin.
The rest of blueberries will be mixed with ¼ cup flour and set aside. I love doing this because it helps keep blueberries from falling at the bottom of liners when baking. The blueberries will kind of stay suspended in the batter mix.
I have never used frozen blueberries for this recipe. So I don’t know how it will taste if you replace fresh for frozen. If you do give it a try, please let me know in comments.
Tips & Notes
Here are some tips in addition to the recipe card that might answer some questions or make the baking process easier.
- Make sure butter and eggs are room temperature.
- When adding flour to mixing bowl, alternate slowly with buttermilk as to incorporate better and not create any bubbles or flour lumps inside the batter.
- Preheat oven as you are mixing the ingredients.
- Use liners for your baking tray.
- Mix flour, baking powder and salt. This mix is usually referred to as the dry ingredients.
- Make sure baking powder is not expired or the container hasn’t been open for too long since it absorbs humidity.
- Butter can be salted or unsalted. If butter is salted, then don’t add a pinch of salt to dry ingredients.
- Muffin tops – you have so many options here and I often mix it up a little so the muffins look different each time. You can add just sugar, brown sugar, turbinado sugar, coarse sugar etc. Or you can make few tbsps of a mix with butter, sugar and flour and spread on top before baking for a delicious muffin top.
- You can refrigerate the muffins for few days if needed, then warm up in the microwave when ready to serve. Ours are usually gone same day so no leftovers:).
Blueberry Muffins with Meyer Lemons
Equipment
Ingredients
Muffin Batter
- 2 cups all purpose flour divided, set ¼ cup aside
- 2 tsps baking powder
- pinch salt only if butter is unsalted, otherwise skip
- 1 stick butter 1 stick butter = ½ cup
- 1 cup regular sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1.5 cups blueberries divided, set quarter of them aside
- 1 Meyer lemon juice and then zest the skin
- 2 eggs
- 0.5 cup buttermilk
Muffin Top
- 1 tbsp butter, softened
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp flour
Instructions
Muffin Batter
- Reserve a small amount of flour on the side. Add the remaining flour to a medium bowl. Then add baking powder and salt. Whisk together and set aside, this is what I refer to as dry ingredients.
- Rinse, drain and pat dry the blueberries. Approximately separate a quarter of them in a small bowl, smash with a fork and set aside. Mix the remaining blueberries with the small flour quantity you separated earlier.
- Juice Meyer lemon and set aside. Zest the skin until you get about 1 tbsp of zest. Also, preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Make sure butter and eggs are room temperature. Add butter to a mixing bowl. Start mixing with a handheld mixer. Then add sugar and mix on medium speed until you get a creamy consistency and color starts to lighten up.
- Add vanilla extract and Meyer lemon juice and continue mixing. Slowly add 1 egg at a time and mix to incorporate. Add lemon zest as well.
- Start adding dry ingredients slowly and alternate with buttermilk, adding a little of each to the mixing bowl at a time until you add all of the dry ingredients and all of the buttermilk. Finally add the smashed blueberries into the batter and mix well. Turn mixer off.
- Add floured blueberries in the batter at this point and use a spatula to incorporate well. Scrape the sides and also mix everything well with the spatula so there's no flour visible.
- Lightly spray cooking spray on muffin baking tray. Add paper liners.
- Scoop batter into all of the slots, spread evenly.
Muffin top
- Mix butter, sugar and flour. Add over batter in the baking tray. A little goes a long way, try to spread evenly over the top. You can also just sprinkle sugar on top.
- Bake for about 30 minutes. Let cool in the tray for about 10-15 minutes then transfer to a cooking rack to cool completely. Enjoy:)
Notes
- If you don’t have buttermilk, replace it for milk. It works great since you’re using lemon juice anyway.
- If you like almond extract, use half vanilla extract and half almond extract for extra flavor.
- You can be flexible with blueberry quantity. However, the more you use be mindful that the muffins might not rise too high.
- Muffin top – best part of eating muffins:). You can choose to sprinkle just coarse sugar on top of batter in baking tin before baking. You can also make your own mix and add it on top.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
Coating blueberries in flour helps prevent them from sinking to the bottom while muffins are baking. It’ll help keep them suspended evenly in the batter.
Secret no! But I find that if I use ingredients (especially eggs, butter and milk) at room temperature I get light and fluffy muffins.
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please save the below image to your boards in Pinterest. Let me know in comments if you have any questions or feel free to tag me in social media with your version of this recipe:).
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Additional Baked Recipes
Feel free to check out additional recipes in my blog:). Thank you for reading my blog!
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