Lemon Blueberry Muffins with Crumb Topping

Ingredients and Notes

Here is an overview of the ingredients you will need to make these bakery style blueberry muffins.

All-purpose Flour: You can use wheat flour but stick to all-purpose for the crumb topping as it will change the texture.

Unsalted Butter: If you have salted butter, decrease the salt by ¼ tsp. The butter must be softened to room temperature, but do not melt. In a pinch, you can cut it into tablespoon sized pieces and pop in the microwave for a few seconds.

Blueberries: You can use fresh or frozen, but frozen blueberries tend to bleed, resulting in purple muffins. For frozen blueberries, thaw them a bit, rinse and pat dry.

Sour Cream: You can use lite or regular sour cream, or Greek yogurt.

Milk: You can use any percentage milk. I have not tried milk substitutes. You can also substitute buttermilk in place of the milk.

Lemon: You want 1 fresh lemon to use for the 2 tablespoon of juice and the zest. The acid of the lemons helps them rise.

1. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. In your main mixing bowl, break the eggs and sour cream until the eggs are well incorporated. (photo 2). Then add the add milk, butter, lemon juice, sugar, vanilla extract, and lemon zest. Mix to combine. (photo 3)
3. With a spoon or spatula, fold in the blueberries gently.

Do NOT OVERMIX! Overmixing causes denser muffins. Batter may be a little lumpy, and that’s fine.

5. Mix all ingredients of the tender crumb topping together in a small bowl. I find this works best with a spoon and then break up the crumbs with your hands.

6. Spoon into muffin tin cups about ¾ full. Muffin pan cups should either be greased well with butter or lined with muffin liners.

7. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoon of crumb topping over the muffins. Very gently pat the topping to keep it from rolling off as the muffins rise.

8. For regular sized muffins, bake for about 18-25 minutes at 400 degrees for fluffy, tender muffins in a fully preheated oven at the right oven temperature. Preheating is key to consistent baking!

Substitutions and Variations

There are so many fun options to make this recipe your own:

• Almonds or Walnuts: Add a half cup of whatever nuts you prefer.
• White Chocolate Chips: If you want to make this a dessert treat, White Chocolate Chips work great with these flavors.
• Buttermilk: Substitute buttermilk in place of the milk. With this, you could also leave the lemon juice out to create bakery style blueberries muffins.
• Lemon Extract: Take the lemon flavor the extra mile by adding a teaspoon.
• Blackberries or Raspberries: Add fresh berries in addition to or in place of the blueberries.
• Sparkling Sugar: You can use turbinado sugar either with or instead of the crumble topping. Sprinkle in the sugar just after adding to the baking cups. If you can find lemon sugar, that would be another tasty option for a burst of flavor from the delicious muffins.
• Lemon Glaze: Take this recipe a step further by topping the muffins with a combination of powdered sugar and lemon juice, serving as a lemon glaze. For best results, allow the muffins to cool a bit before drizzling with glaze.

Watch the Recipe Video

I have also taped myself preparing these ultimate lemon blueberry muffins in the video below. The written instructions are in the recipe card further down the page.

I hope you're going to give this a try to make your mornings extra special - especially for those busy on-the-go mornings like ours.