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The best bakery-style blueberry muffins are moist and fluffy, bursting with fresh, juicy berries, and finished with a crunchy sugar topping. These sour cream blueberry muffins are also big, decadent, and totally satisfying!
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Every summer, as the local Virginia blueberries ripen, our family goes on a quest for the best blueberry muffin recipe. After many, many rounds of trial and error, I can confidently say that these sour cream blueberry muffins are definitely the current favorite! They’re moist and tender, full of sweet, juicy berries, and blessed with big, high, sugar-crusted tops. What more could you ask for in a batch of homemade muffins?
Stir together a batch for a convenient grab-and-go breakfast, a lovely addition to a brunch buffet, or a sweet make-ahead afternoon snack. They’re so easy, and freezer-friendly, too! If you love muffins as much as we do, you’ll definitely want to try these one-bowl banana chocolate chip muffins, these strawberry muffins, and these easy, one-bowl pumpkin muffins.
How to Make Tall Muffin Tops
There are a couple of key steps to creating that nice, high dome on the muffin top:
- Use a thick batter (you’ve got that here, thanks to the sour cream!)
- Fill the muffin cups to the top (I like to use an ice cream scoop to equally measure the same amount of batter into each cup)
The Secret to Moist Muffins
To keep the muffins light, tender, fluffy, and incredibly moist so that they don’t just crumble:
- Use full-fat sour cream. The acid in the thick, rich, sour cream yields a muffin with a moist, tender crumb. The fat in the sour cream also contributes moisture to the batter.
- Two different types of fat. The butter adds great flavor to the muffins, while the oil keeps them exceptionally moist. Don’t skimp on the fat in these bakery-style treats!
- Do not over-mix the batter. You want it to come together so that everything is combined, but then stop stirring. Mixing too much activates the gluten in the flour and results in dry, dense muffins.
Are blueberry muffins bad for you?
While I wouldn’t consider this muffin recipe healthy (it includes flour, butter, oil, sour cream, and sugar), you will appreciate that the homemade muffins are made with just a few simple ingredients. You can choose high quality ingredients, organic fresh berries, and leave out all of the funky preservatives or additives that you might find in a similar boxed mix. You can also control the size of your muffins, unlike jumbo bake shop blueberry muffins that might be twice as large.
Each sour cream blueberry muffin has about 221 calories, 8 grams of fat, 4 grams of protein and 34 grams of carbohydrates.
Ingredients for the Best Blueberry Muffins
This is a quick overview of the simple ingredients that you’ll need for a batch of easy blueberry muffins. As always, specific measurements and complete step-by-step instructions are included in the printable recipe box at the bottom of the post.
- All-purpose flour: the base of the batter. For extra whole grains, substitute some whole wheat flour for about half of the all-purpose flour.
- Granulated sugar: for just the right amount of sweetness.
- Baking powder and baking soda: the leavening agents that help the muffins rise.
- Salt: to enhance the other flavors in the muffins, balance the sweetness, and add depth of flavor.
- Sour cream: provides an acidic element that helps the muffins rise. It also gives them a moist, tender texture, while keeping the batter thick so that the muffins rise high and have a nice dome. Use a full-fat sour cream (not light) for the best flavor and texture. You can also substitute with a full-fat Greek-style plain yogurt.
- Eggs: for structure and lift.
- Vanilla extract: for extra flavor.
- Butter and vegetable oil: I like the combination of both butter and vegetable oil because you get the flavor of the butter and the moisture of the oil. If you prefer, you can use all butter or all oil. When using unsalted butter, you may like to add an extra pinch of salt to the batter.
- Blueberries: sweet and bursting with summer flavor! You can substitute with frozen blueberries, but they’re not my preference because they tend to bleed and can turn the batter an odd shade of bluish-green.
Are frozen or fresh blueberries better for muffins?
Either fresh or frozen blueberries will work in this recipe, so use whichever you prefer. The fresh summer blueberries are always my preference — for both taste and texture. If you don’t have any fresh berries available, the muffins will also be great with frozen blueberries. Do not thaw the frozen berries before stirring them into the muffins. Also, be aware that the juices from frozen berries can “bleed” and turn the batter an odd shade of bluish-green.
Should I coat blueberries in flour for muffins?
Coating berries with about 1 tablespoon of flour before folding them into the batter can help the berries stay suspended so that they don’t sink to the bottom of the muffins. That said, I don’t find this step necessary in this particular recipe. The muffin batter is so thick, that the berries don’t need the extra flour to stay put!
What makes blueberry sour cream muffins better?
There are a number of different ingredients that you can add to these basic muffins to make them even better. For instance, you might like to stir in some lemon zest and/or lemon juice for lemon blueberry muffins, orange zest for a different note of citrus, or warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg for a cozy twist. A streusel topping, as shown here, is a decadent addition. Almond extract gives them a unique, delicious flavor as well. Feel free to adapt the recipe and make it your own!
How to Make Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins
These muffins employ the classic muffin-making method of adding wet ingredients to dry ingredients — no electric mixer necessary! The detailed directions are included in the recipe card below, but here’s the short version:
- Whisk together the dry ingredients.
- Whisk together the wet ingredients.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
- Add the melted butter and oil; stir again. The batter will be thick, which is good!
- Fold in the blueberries.
- Spoon or scoop the batter evenly between 12 muffin cups in a standard muffin pan lined with cupcake liners. Just like you would for cupcakes!
- Sprinkle coarse sugar, sparkling sugar, or turbinado sugar (raw sugar) on top of each muffin.
- Bake in a 375°F oven for about 20 minutes.
- Transfer to a cooling rack, then enjoy!
Serving Suggestions
Sour cream blueberry muffins are such a versatile little treat. You can offer them for a quick grab-and-go breakfast on busy mornings; pile some in a basket as a part of a special brunch buffet; set out a few with a glass of lemonade or iced tea for an afternoon snack; or even add them to your bread basket as a side dish with dinner.
We love the variety of a bread basket that includes some homemade bread, a few warm muffins, and a couple wedges of cornbread. It turns an ordinary weeknight meal into a special restaurant-worthy occasion — and you can pull each of these items from your freezer with almost zero effort!
Enjoy the easy blueberry muffins at room temperature or serve them warm. They’re best with a smear of soft butter or a dollop of homemade blueberry jam!
Storage Tips
Allow the sour cream blueberry muffins to cool completely. Store in a large Ziploc freezer bag or other airtight container. The muffins will last for 2-3 days at room temperature, or you can freeze the muffins for up to 3 months.
How to Reheat Homemade Blueberry Muffins
If the muffins are frozen, allow them to sit on the counter for a few minutes while you preheat the oven to 350°F. Frozen muffins will require about 10-12 minutes in the oven; room temperature muffins will only need about 5 minutes to warm through.
Alternatively, you can microwave one muffin at a time for 15-30 seconds or just until warm.
Sour Cream Blueberry Muffin Recipe Variations
- You can substitute with frozen blueberries; however, be aware that the frozen berries will “bleed” and likely turn the batter a weird bluish-green color. Do not thaw the frozen berries before folding them into the batter.
- Omit the sugar topping, or add streusel crumb topping on top of the muffins instead.
- Use any fresh berries that you have available. A mix of finely-diced strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries would be perfect.
- Swap out the sour cream and use thick, full-fat, plain Greek yogurt.
- Lemon Blueberry Muffins: to give these muffins a powerful lemon punch, add 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon zest to the batter.
Tips for the Best Blueberry Muffin Recipe
- Use full-fat sour cream for a rich, moist muffin.
- Allow the sour cream and eggs to come to room temperature. This will help them blend more smoothly with the rest of the ingredients.
- The key to a perfect muffin is just barely mixing the ingredients. You want them to come together, but a few lumps are fine. This way they’ll stay moist and tender!
- Fill the muffin cups nice and full to give the muffins those great domes and a high rise.
- To check if the muffins are done, insert a toothpick into the center and make sure it comes out clean. Don’t cook them for too long, or they can dry out.
- This recipe yields 16 standard-size sour cream blueberry muffins. You can bake the batter in jumbo muffin tins for giant bakery-size treats. You’ll need to increase the total baking time to 30-35 minutes for the jumbo muffins. Similarly, you can bake the batter in mini muffin tins. The mini muffins will bake much faster, so they will only need a total of about 12-15 minutes in a 350°F oven.
More Blueberry Recipes to Try
Easy Blueberry Cobbler
40 minutes mins
Blueberry Jam
12 hours hrs 40 minutes mins
Blueberry Bread
2 hours hrs 10 minutes mins
Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups full-fat sour cream, at room temperature
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons (½ of a stick) salted butter, melted and cooled
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (do not thaw if frozen)
- Coarse sugar, for topping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 16 muffin cups with paper liners.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together sour cream, eggs, and vanilla extract.
- Add the sour cream mixture to the flour mixture. Use a rubber spatula to stir gently, just until the ingredients come together and you can’t see any dry pockets of flour. Gently stir in the melted butter and oil. Do not over-mix. The batter will be very thick!
- Fold in the blueberries.
- Fill the muffin cups to the top with batter (I use an ice cream scoop to make sure that each muffin is the same size).
- Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of coarse sugar on top of each muffin. It will seem like a lot of sugar for each muffin, but trust me – this is how you get those delicious bakery-style sugar-crusted tops!
- Bake the muffins in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
- Let the muffins cool in the pans on wire racks for 5-10 minutes. Remove the muffins from the pans and enjoy warm, or cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
Notes
- Use full-fat sour cream for a rich, moist muffin.
- Allow the sour cream and eggs to come to room temperature. This will help them blend together more smoothly with the rest of the ingredients.
- The key to a perfect muffin is just barely mixing the ingredients. You want them to come together, but a few lumps are fine. This way they’ll stay moist and tender!
- Fill the muffin cups nice and full to give the muffins those great domes and a high rise.
- To check if the muffins are done, insert a toothpick into the center and make sure it comes out clean. Don’t cook them for too long, or they can dry out.
- This recipe yields 16 standard-size muffins. You can bake the batter in jumbo muffin tins for giant bakery-size treats. You’ll need to increase the total baking time to 30-35 minutes for the jumbo muffins. Similarly, you can bake the batter in mini muffin tins. The mini muffins will bake much faster, so they will only need a total of about 12-15 minutes in a 350°F oven.
- Swap out the sour cream and use thick, full-fat, plain Greek-style yogurt.
- Lemon Blueberry Muffins: to give these muffins a powerful lemon punch, add 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon zest to the batter.
- Recipe adapted from America’s Test Kitchen.
Thank you so much for an outstanding recipe! I am a beginner baker and recently found your site. There are so many recipes online nowadays, but very few written out so that a beginner like myself can navigate. I made these muffins last weekend and they turned out so good that I will bake another batch for church tomorrow morning.
Thank you!
That makes me really happy to hear, Tracy. Thanks for taking the time to leave me a note, and enjoy the muffins! 🙂
These were so delicious and easy to make! Will definitely make them again.
Thank you so much, Michelle!
Absolutely delicious , I added a streusel. I lived the rise!!!
Thank you so much, Nayan!
This is the best recipe for blueberry muffins I have ever had. Everyone loved them. I made three batches in three weeks.
Wow! Thank you so much, Janice!
I have made this recipe numerous times. Delicious and I love the non cakey texture…slightly like a good, tender, moist scone. I also add a little almond extract with the vanilla.
Thank you, Lynn! We’re so glad you enjoy it.
These are so delish!!!! I will not make any other kind of muffins now that I’ve tried these.
Thank you so much, Melissa!
The best recipe ever. I bake for the local farmers market and decided to incorporate these muffins in my booth. They flew off my table. I also grow my own berries, so it was a “no-brainer” to do this. Muffins are crunchy on top because of the sugar and the muffins are soft and fluffy inside. HIGHLY RECOMMEND trying this recipe. You won’t regret it.
Thank you so much, Sue! We’re so happy they were such a hit!
Thank you for sharing your recipe. We live in Michigan and enjoy picking at a a large U-pick blueberry farm right down the road. I’ve tried dozens of recipes but this is definitely the one. Love your blog. This morning was my first visit – I’ll be back! Next up, shrimp and grits 🙂
Thank you!
This makes me so happy, Kelli. I bet your Michigan blueberries are incredible! Thanks for your note, and enjoy the shrimp and grits!