Your favorite bakery-style muffin gets an upgrade with tangy sourdough starter, fresh blueberries and the heady scent of lemon zest and vanilla extract. So moist and fluffy, with the perfect crunchy top! Let the batter rest overnight and bake fresh in the morning. Yes, really...
Blueberry muffins are iconic. Everyone loves them. For years, my go-to recipes included blueberry cornmeal muffins and buttermilk blueberry crumb muffins, and then eventually: sourdough. I’m happy with this particular sourdough discard recipe because they are soft yet sturdy, perfectly moist, and bursting with warm blueberry goodness in every bite. The exterior boasts a curiously crisp bite, and the subtle hint of lemon zest and vanilla extract will make your heart sing!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Taste aside, it boils down to this: convenient prep. Make the batter at night, portion into a muffin tin and chill overnight. The flavor deepens with time, and because the batter is naturally fermented for 12+ hours, the muffins are easier to digest (thank you, sourdough). In the morning, bake the muffin batter straight from cold and you’ll have an easy, zero-effort homemade breakfast in under 30 minutes.
Ingredients You Will Need:
- All purpose flour
- Baking soda
- Fine sea salt
- Sourdough Starter (active starter or sourdough discard)
- Whole milk
- Unsalted butter
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Lemon zest
- Large eggs
- Fresh blueberries
- Powdered sugar, to serve
How To Make Sourdough Blueberry Muffins {Step-By-Step Instructions}
Make The Batter:
- Preheat your oven to 375 F/ 190 C. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
- Sift the flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl; set aside.
- Whisk the sourdough starter and milk together in a separate small bowl; set aside.
- Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and lemon zest together. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. I like using a stand mixer for this. Alternatively, use a large bowl and wooden spoon. Just make sure the butter is truly at room temperature (soft) so that it’s easy to mix!
- Next step: Add 1/2 of the flour mixture. Once absorbed, add 1/2 of the milk mixture. Repeat until everything is used up and your have a smooth, consistent batter. It will smell amazing at this point.
- Fold the fresh blueberries into the bowl with a rubber spatula. Note: for the purpose of this blog post, I transferred the batter into a large blue bowl (pictured above) so you could see the texture better. You do not need to do this if using a stand mixer.
- Portion the batter into your lined muffin tin, filling the cups approximately 3/4’s full.
Ferment Overnight (or bake right away):
- Now, at this stage you have two options: bake right away or ferment overnight.
- To bake now: place the tin on the center rack and bake @ 375 F/ 190 C for 25-28 minutes.
- To bake later: cover the tin with foil and chill overnight in the refrigerator, for 12+ hours. Bake straight from cold the next day for 25-28 minutes.
- Cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling so the bottoms don’t get soggy.
- Serve warm with powdered sugar! Or eat plain. Both ways are good. Look at how light and delicate they are…
Recipe Tips:
- All sourdough starters are different. The consistency of yours (thick vs. thin) will determine the texture of the muffin batter. You’re looking for a semi-thick batter similar to plain yogurt. This will suspend the berries evenly throughout the muffins, and fortify the overall structure once baked. If your batter is too thin, add more flour. Too thick, add more milk.
- Fresh is best. Compared to frozen blueberries, fresh blueberries they hold their shape better and they are not as wet and mushy after a lengthy, overnight fermentation.
- Zest or citrus oil? I’ve been playing around with citrus oils in my baking, specifically lemon and orange, and I’m in love. First, they’re super convenient to have on hand especially when you don’t have any lemons or oranges to zest. Second, a little bit goes a long way. They are very concentrated. I use Doterra citrus oils. King Arthur Baking also sells them.
More Sourdough Discard Recipes To Try!
- Best Sourdough Pancakes
- Ultimate Sourdough Banana Bread
- Secret Ingredient Sourdough Cornbread
- Best Sourdough Pasta {1 Hr. or Overnight}
- Overnight Sourdough Apple Cake
- Moist, Fluffy Sourdough Gingerbread Cake
Moist Sourdough Blueberry Muffins (Overnight Option)
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 28 minutes
- Total Time: 38 minutes
- Yield: 12 muffins
- Category: Sourdough Discard Recipes
- Method: Oven-Baked
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
It took me a year to get this recipe right. The texture is light and delicate, perfectly moist, with the taste of fresh blueberry goodness in every bite. You can bake these muffins on the same day, or to benefit from sourdough’s natural digestibility, ferment the batter overnight and bake in the morning.
Ingredients
- 200 g all purpose flour (1 1/2 cups)
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 60 g sourdough starter (active sourdough starter or sourdough discard)
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 115 g (8 tbsp.) unsalted butter, at room temperature (soft)
- 200 g (1 cup) granulated sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 2 large eggs
- 165 g (1 heaping cup) fresh blueberries, plus more for decoration
- Powdered sugar, to serve
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375 F/ 190 C. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.
- Sift the flour, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl; set aside.
- Whisk the sourdough starter and milk together in a separate small bowl; set aside.
- In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or by hand with a wooden spoon): cream the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and zest together. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Working in batches, add 1/2 of the flour mixture. Once absorbed, add half of the milk mixture. Repeat until everything is used up and the batter is smooth and well incorporated.
- Fold the blueberries into the bowl with a rubber spatula. Make sure to evenly distribute the berries throughout the batter (check the bottom of the bowl!).
- Fill the muffin pan, about 3/4 of the way full. Top with a few berries if you like, making sure to tuck them in so they don’t pop out during baking.
- At this point, you can bake right away or chill overnight, for 12+ hours.
- To bake now: place the tin on the center rack and bake for 25-28 minutes.
- To bake later: remove the tin from the refrigerator; discard the foil. Bake straight from cold for 25-28 minutes.
- Cool the muffins in the pan for 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling so the bottoms don’t get soggy.
- Serve warm or at room temperature with powdered sugar.
Comments
Laura says
I really wanted a truly fermented sourdough muffin so I did change up the method of this a bit and the results were outstanding! I know there is the overnight option as presented here but I’m just not convinced that anything would truly ferment in my cold fridge overnight. So what I did was creamed the butter and then added the flour in 3 batches alternating with the milk and then scooped that out into a separate container. I worked with my hands a bit to make sure all the flour was incorporated. It felt almost too thick to ferment or rise but I did let it sit out overnight on the counter covered and the next morning it looked bigger and the texture was lovely. So then I proceeded to make the muffin batter with the rest of the ingredients – I used brown sugar instead of white and beat it, I added a splash of avocado oil because the rest of the fat is already with the flour and milk, just to help it cream up a bit. Added the eggs one at a time, the vanilla, the salt, baking soda, the lemon zest, then I add-libbed and put in a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon and a tablespoon of ground flax. Beated until smooth. Then I mixed in the sourdough flour mixture until completely combined, stirred in the blueberries and spooned into the muffin liners and baked as directed.
These are honestly the best, fluffiest, moist, most delicious muffins I have EVER had. It’s definitely this Clever Carrot recipe that makes them so good even without my changes because I tried another muffin recipe with a countertop flour sourdough ferment and they were nowhere near as good as these. I think it’s the butter!
James says
Delicious. These muffins are very good, and the recipe is easy. I really enjoy being able to use some of the sourdough discard in something rather than tossing it out.
I will repeat this recipe.
I did make a couple of substitutions, because of what was in the fridge. I used some leftover coconut milk instead of dairy milk, because it was running out of lifespan, and I used chocolate chips instead of blueberries because it’s spring break!
I think these would be even better with blueberries, so I will be trying that next time.
Kristen S. says
I only had frozen blueberries, so I made the batter and stuck the whole bowl in the fridge overnight and folded in the blueberries before portioning in muffin tins. They baked up beautifully!
I had extra batter (after 24 cupcakes) and no more time to bake before work… so I shoved it back in the fridge and baked the next morning. All the berries in batch 2 were still suspended and no bleeding into the dough!
This recipe is a definite keeper.