Whenever I think of grandma's blueberry muffins, I get the warm and fuzzies.
During the hot and humid Pennsylvania summers we used to spend a day picking blueberries, filling huge buckets with tiny berries while eating probably just as many.
We'd come home happy with inky fingers, and my mom would freeze bags and bags of our bounty, so that mid-winter she could whip up a batch of grandma's blueberry muffins on a whim. I can still taste the sugar coated tops and feel the warm juicy berries pop in my mouth.
Over the years, I've experimented with ‘other' blueberry muffin recipes, but I always come back to grandma's (that was originally the Jordan Marsh recipe), handwritten on a stained card in my mom's handwriting.
I've tweaked it only slightly for a real food twist – using sprouted flour instead of white and substituting sucanat (unrefined, dried cane juice) for the white sugar. I always worry that these more wholesome-looking muffins won't be as nostalgically delicious, until I take a bite and the memories come flooding back again.
Grandma's blueberry muffins – ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter + 1 T. for greasing pan, preferably from grass-fed cows – at room temperature
- 1 cup sucanat – get unrefined sugar here
- 2 eggs, preferably from pasture-raised hens
- 1/2 cup milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
- 2 cups sprouted flour – get sprouted flour here
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. sea salt – my favorite sea salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
- 2 tsp. raw sugar, or another coarse sugar, optional for garnish
Grandma's blueberry muffins – method
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Preferably using a standing mixer, cream butter and sucanat.
- Add eggs and beat well.
- Add dry ingredients alternating with milk.
- Mash 1/2 cup of the bluberries (thaw slightly first if frozen and hard). Stir into batter.
- Add the remaining whole berries and fold in. Your batter should be quite thick, sticky, and a shocking deep purple color.
- Grease top of muffin pan (not inside) with 1 T. butter in case your muffin tops bake over the edges. Place unbleached paper baking cups into a muffin pan. Pile batter high in paper baking cups and sprinkle sugar on top.
- Bake for 35 minutes in the preheated oven, then cool for 30 minutes before serving.
Got a favorite recipe from grandma tucked away on an old recipe card? Tell us about it below.
Half *cup* of butter, I’m assuming? Can’t wait to try these! Thanks.
I always love a good muffin recipe, going to try this with sprouted spelt flour this weekend!
As far as nostalgia recipes mine would be broccoli casserole and coconut cake both of which my late grand mother made.
These look delicious! Do you know if anyone has had success adding in bran of some kind?
Hi Erika – I’m not sure. Let us know how it turns out if you try adding it. 🙂
Thanks for this recipe. It’s the first muffin recipe I’ve encountered that is “built” like a cake…creaming the butter and sugar first. They are delicious and I’m already dreaming of using cranberries, orange zest and nuts in the fall.
I did cut the amount of sugar in half, in case anybody is wondering if it can be done. Still delicious…but if you’ve had them with full sugar I imagine they would seem like something’s missing. :).