Blueberry Muffins with Almond Crumb Topping
With their insanely delicious crunchy, chewy, almond and brown sugar crumb topping, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without these blueberry muffins in your life! I LOVE blueberry muffins (especially the top), but I had never put enough focus and energy into creating a good muffin. After tons of experimenting, I think I’ve created the perfect blueberry muffin. They’re packed with blueberries and have a light, fluffy, texture. They also have perfectly domed tops and an amazing crumb topping. They’re soooo good I even eat the bottom 🙃
Here are the keys to making a great muffin/the things I learned along the way:
- Do not overmix the batter. If you do, you’ll get a tough, rubbery muffin.
- Fill the muffin liners to the very top to create the perfect size muffin. (I suppose you can also use that ginormous-size muffin tin, but I prefer the regular size, just filled all the way so it domes over the top of the liner, not just inside the liner.)
- Start cooking on high heat to get a good initial rise and that nice domed top. Then lower the heat so you don’t burn the crumb topping.
Blueberry Muffins
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 14 or 15 muffins 1x
Description
You’re going to need a few bowls for this recipe, but the clean up is easy (nothing is particularly sticky or hard to wash).
Ingredients
Scale
Topping
- ½ cup (63 grams) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (110 grams) brown sugar
- 40 grams (⅓ cup) almond flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ stick (4 tablespoons/56 grams) unsalted butter
Muffins
- 2 cups (250 grams) all purpose flour + an extra teaspoon or 2 for the blueberries
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 6 tablespoons (84 grams) unsalted butter softened or at room temp
- 1 cup (200 grams) sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups (10 ½ oz/300 grams) blueberries
- ¾ cup (14 grams) plain Greek yogurt
- ¼ cup milk
- Butter or cooking spray to grease the muffin pan
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 220C/430F. See Update in step 7, and wait for the rest period to preheat your oven.
- Grease the top and cups of muffin tin and place liners in. Update: A friend gave me these liners called tulip liners (this is what they look like: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cupcake-Natural-Grease-Proof-Wrappers-Birthday/dp/B07S9W5RT8/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=tulip+liners&qid=1618395811&s=kitchen&sr=1-3). If you use the tulip liners, you do not need to grease the muffin tin. I also liked that I could fill the liners on my kitchen scale which ensures the exact same size muffins. I used about 80-85 grams of batter per muffin which yielded 14 muffins.
- Topping: Place all topping ingredients together in a medium bowl. With clean hands, mix until well combined and you can form little clumps when you squeeze bits together. Set aside.
- Muffin: Place ½ the blueberries in a bowl and mash them with the back of a fork. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining (non mashed) blueberries with a teaspoon or 2 of flour until they are lightly coated in flour. Set aside.
- Combine the yogurt and milk together in a small bowl or right in a measuring cup and stir until the mixture is smooth.
- In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes). Add in eggs, vanilla, and yogurt/milk mixture. Fold in dry ingredients. Do not over fold/mix. If you do you’ll get tough muffins. The batter should be sort of lumpy and can have little pockets of unmixed dry ingredients. Fold in the mashed and whole blueberries.
- Update: I was noticing that the second batch of muffins I baked had a better rise. So preheat your oven to 220C/430F now. And after you’ve prepared your batter, let it sit or “rest” for about 20-25 minutes. After the rest period, fill standard muffin liners to the top. Or, if you’re using tulip liners, fill about ⅔ (80-84 grams of batter). Press about 1 tablespoon of topping onto each.
- Place the muffin tin in the oven and cook for 10 minutes at 220C/430F then turn the heat down to 175C/350F degrees and cook for another 15 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let the muffins cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Remove from the muffin tin and place on a cooling rack. Consume within about 2 days or freeze.