Sourdough Blueberry Muffins | Sunny Side Suppers' Newsletter
❤️ Did you know that if you hit the HEART at the top or bottom of this post, it makes it easier for people to find this newsletter? (And makes my day!) 🥰
These moist and tender sourdough blueberry muffins are the perfect way to use up discard. The sourdough starter gives these muffins a slight tanginess that is quite addictive!
This recipe originally appeared on my food blog, where it received dozens of rave reviews. It is now available exclusively on Substack for supporting members. Here’s what two readers had to say about this recipe:
There are many benefits of having an active sourdough starter in the fridge.
The first, most obviously, is the ability to make sourdough bread at home. If you haven’t tried it, you must. I’ve been making it for years and let me tell you, there’s nothing like slicing open a crusty loaf of bread you made with your own hands. I love slathering a freshly baked slice with butter, then biting through the crunchy crust and into the fluffy interior. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
The second benefit of having a sourdough starter around? All the wonderful things you can make with the sourdough discard!
I feed my starter twice a week – on Wednesdays and Sundays – which means twice a week I have some discard that needs to be used up. These sourdough waffles are a family favorite. And the blueberry muffins you see here are another one of our top sourdough discard recipes.
I won’t go into too much detail on how to make these muffins as the process is pretty simple. You mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, mix the wet ingredients in another bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix. Add blueberries. Bake. That’s pretty much all muffins in a nutshell.
There are, however, a few things that make these sourdough muffins particularly worth trying:
This is an EASY sourdough discard recipe. Working with sourdough starter/discard can be a little intimidating, so best to start with simple recipes like these muffins or the waffles I mentioned above. There really is nothing special you have to do. You just treat the discard like any wet ingredient.
I love how moist, tender and fluffy these muffins are! They get a nice dome on top that makes you feel like you’re visiting a coffeeshop. If you want to feel extra fancy, you can sprinkle some pearl sugar on top of the muffin batter just before baking. They add a pretty sparkle since pearl sugar does not melt when you bake the muffins.
The sourdough discard gives these muffins a little tang. It adds a whole new depth of flavor. It’s hard to describe, but these muffins have a more complex flavor than a regular blueberry muffin.
Muffin batter is usually thicker than cupcake batter – and this makes sense if you think about what each recipe is. A cupcake, as the name implies, is essentially a mini cake. By contrast, a muffin is a kind of quick bread. I added a photo (above) of what the batter for these muffins should look like. 🙂
Another thing to note about muffins vs. cupcakes is how much batter you add to your muffin tin. For cupcakes, I will only fill each tin a scant 3/4 full so that the cupcake has room to rise significantly without losing its shape. But muffins like the ones you see here have a thicker batter that holds its shape better, so for these I usually fill my muffin tin almost to the top. This gives them enough room to expand and gain some structure before they rise above the edge of the muffin liner.
As a side note: You don’t have to use a cupcake liner. You can also spray your tin generously with PAM and then bake these muffins right in the tin. (Don’t skip the baking spray though.)
I hope you give these muffins a try and discover a new way to use up extra sourdough discard!
Over the years a few folks have emailed me wondering if they can add a topping to these muffins. The answer is: yes! I like to use a mixture of crunchy walnuts, brown sugar and ground cinnamon. All you have to do is mix up the topping ingredients in a bowl and then sprinkle over the muffin batter just before baking. You can also use finely chopped pecans or almonds if you like those nuts better.
ncG1vNJzZmirpaO7ur%2FInZysraClsrO%2Fjaysm6uklrCsesKopGioX6i8tr7DqKygoF2XubaxwZ6pq7FdosKnssinqg%3D%3D