Simple Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins

These simple buttermilk blueberry muffins are sure to be a hit! With minimal ingredients and sweetened with unrefined sucanat, you can feel great about serving these muffins any time of day. Whip a batch up and watch them disappear quickly!

Muffin Mystery

I can never seem to find a muffin recipe I really love. I have searched and searched for the perfect recipe but they always fall short. Don’t give me an ingredient list a mile long or something that has layers in the muffin! Just give me a short and sweet recipe that actually works and I am happy. While searching I stumbled on a blueberry muffin recipe using buttermilk. I had never seen a muffin recipe using buttermilk so I decided to try it. With our milk cow Lucy being so fresh in milk I have been making buttermilk by the gallon so new recipes using it are welcome! Long story short…I was disappointed. Mainly because it was a recipe that sounded great but after making it, I knew right away the author had not truly tested the recipe. Ughh.. back to the drawing board.

Why Buttermilk?

Buttermilk might seem like an odd ingredient in muffins. I admit I was skeptical. But it truly does give the muffins a flavor that nothing else I have ever used does. Plus, I am swimming in buttermilk these days so having a simple muffin recipe to use some is pretty convenient. Fresh buttermilk is nothing like the stuff from the store. So I would encourage anyone to find a local (legal) source of fresh milk and make your own! It’s so simple in the Instant Pot! I have even made large batches and frozen it for use during months we don’t have fresh milk daily.

If you don’t have access to fresh milk you can also make your own buttermilk using regular milk and vinegar. Just measure out the amount of liquid the recipe calls for and leave room in the measuring cup to add about 1.5 tablespoons vinegar (white or apple works). Leave it sit for about 10 minutes and then use it according to the recipe!

Substitutions

You can always sub some ingredients in this recipe. I am constantly making things with what I have on hand rather than exactly by the directions. For this recipe, I use yogurt. However, sour cream would also work. I also use frozen blueberries but you could always use fresh. Just be sure to add them to the dry ingredients first and then mix in with the wet ingredients carefully. I use kosher salt. If you don’t have any then down the amount of fine salt to about 2/3 teaspoon. The coconut oil is also able to be substituted. Any oil such as avocado, sunflower, olive oil (I’d make sure it’s a mild one) will work well. Butter should be fine too. You may end up using slightly less buttermilk if you use butter but you’ll know by the looks of the batter how much you will need. I used organic all-purpose flour for this recipe. I have not used any type of whole wheat flour with it so I do not know how that will work. You will use less flour though. If you do try it with whole wheat flour let me know how it turns out in the comments!

Sweetener

So I used sucanat in these muffins. If you’re not familiar with it, google it. Seriously though, it’s basically sugar in the rawest form with little to no processing. It looks like dirt. Thankfully it tastes much better. I think it ends up being a nice middle ground between cane sugar and molasses. We don’t do crazy sweet in this household. We definitely eat sugar but if something has way too much in it, none of us care for it. So these muffins are sweetened with this and the blueberries themselves. Every one of my kids grabbed one and quickly returned for more. My son told me he loved how they were the perfect sweetness. If you like sweeter, use cane sugar. Same amount, same method of creaming with the oil. I have not used honey or maple syrup though and that would change some things. So don’t use those and keep the rest of the ingredients the same.

Make the Muffins

So there is an order to making these muffins if you want them to bake nice and fluffy. If you don’t care, then just dump all the ingredients together and mix well. I would highly recommend not adding the berries until last either way.

If you want to follow directions add the ingredients as follows:

• Cream together sucanat and oil in a stand mixer.
• Add eggs one at a time and mix well.
• In separate mixing bowl, add dry ingredients and mix well (if using fresh berries, add them now).
• Mix buttermilk & yogurt together in separate bowl.
• Add about 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the stand mixer bowl and mix on low.
• Add about 1/3 of the buttermilk/yogurt mixture to the bow and mix on low.
• Continue alternating dry/wet until ingredients are just mixed together. Leave some flour showing. It will mix in when you add berries.
• Add berries (if using frozen) and fold in gently. This should mix in any leftover flour.

NOTE:*If using fresh berries add ALL the wet ingredients at once first. Then remove bowl from stand and mix in ALL dry ingredients by HAND gently.

Bake & Enjoy!

Bake these muffins at 325 for about 20 minutes, give or take. Here’s the deal. The recipe I tried initially had me baking these at like 400 degrees for 25 minutes!!! Seriously, why I did not question that I do not know. I had burnt muffin bricks to say the least. And I was ticked at all the expensive ingredients wasted. So bake them at 325 (pretty safe temp for muffins. WATCH them! At 12 minutes check with a toothpick and see if the batter is still pretty runny or not. If it’s still basically batter, you can feel good that 20 minutes (maybe more) is safe. However, if your oven runs hot for some reason and the batter is already setting up at 12 minutes, don’t go far away and just wait until the timer beeps. Check them again every few minutes until the tester comes out clean. Remove immediately and cool. Then dig in and enjoy! Guarantee these don’t last long if you have a houseful of hungry minions like me. Let me know how these turn out in the comments!