These blueberry lime muffins are gloriously plump sugar-topped muffins where the sweet blueberry flavor is accented with lime zest and a sour cream tang. I love muffins because they are packages of joy that we can eat at any time of day because they’re called muffins and not cupcakes. Some misguided souls claim that muffins are unfrosted cupcakes. I think they have the wrong end of pan. Most cupcakes are dry and boring. They’re the parent at the game wearing leather pants and a bad attitude. Cupcakes try to hide their mediocrity behind festive wrappers, candy toppers, and gobs of sickly-sweet frosting. Muffins, on the other hand, are cakes that came to play. They are ready to share snacks and cheer all the kids on all the teams. They’ve got all the flavor and fun that cupcakes are supposed to have and they don’t have a pound of frosting to hide behind.
I have been making these blueberry muffins for about 15 years, they’re adapted from Deb Perelman’s blueberry muffin recipe, but I have made two key changes: First, Deb’s recipe makes 9 muffins, and does not scale well, so I have updated the bones of her recipe to make 12 muffins (and to halve easily for those not cooking for a crowd). Second, I changed the citrus note from lemon to lime. The lime in these muffins makes these muffins dazzlingly good. But feel free to use lemon if you prefer
Notes
Note about frozen vs fresh blueberries
These muffins have a ridiculous amount of blueberries and they are perfect for it. While I am a huge fan of frozen blueberries in other baked goods, these work best with fresh berries.
Note muffin size
I use a regular sized muffin tin for these muffins. They don’t require a special sized tin, but they do have glorious muffin tops. There is enough batter to make large topped muffins that look absolutely stunning. T
Key Ingredients
blueberries
unsalted butter
sour cream
eggs
all purpose flour
lime zest
turbano sugar
Blueberry Lime Muffins – Recipe
Makes 12 (large topped) regular sized muffins. Takes about 45 minutes start to finish. Adapted from Deb Perelman’s Perfect Blueberry Muffins at Smitten Kitchen.
Ingredients
- zest from 2 medium limes (or 1 medium lemon)
- ¾ cups (150 grams) white granulated sugar
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (cold is fine)
- 1 cup (240 grams) sour cream (or 50/50 mix of sour cream and plain yogurt)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon diamond kosher salt (or ¼ teaspoon table salt)
- 2 and ¼ cups (270 grams) sifted all-purpose flour
- 2+ cups (1 pint,12 ounces or 340 grams) blueberries
- About 5 tablespoons turbano sugar (sugar in the raw)
Step One
Preheat oven to 375. Line muffin tin with liners. Pour sugar into a medium sized mixing bowl, grate lime zest into the sugar, and then mix sugar and zest together with your fingertips. Set aside.
Step Two
In a microwave safe bowl, melt the stick of butter. Pour butter into bowl with lime zest and sugar, mix together with a fork. Then add the sour cream and 2 eggs and mix together. Sprinkle baking soda, baking powder, and salt over top. Stir to combine. Sprinkle sifted flour over top and stir until just combined. Gently fold in the berries. This is a very thick and fluffy dough.
Step Three
With an eye to an even distribution of blueberries, scoop dough into the lined muffin tin. Then dust the top of each muffin with about 2 teaspoons of turbano sugar. Bake 22-28 minutes until a tester inserted into a muffin comes out clean (rotating your pan half way through). Allow muffins to sit for 5 minutes before removing them from the tin.
Enjoy while warm. Store these muffins on the counter covered LOOSELY (otherwise the turbano sugar will melt). They reheat well in a toaster oven or even in the microwave, but like all muffins are best on the first day.