Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: The muffins themselves are sweet, but not too sweet, and so flavorful thanks to the buttermilk and butter. Of course, they’ll take on the flavor of whatever you add to them!
Texture: Soft, tender, and moist. Perfect!
Ease: These babies are so easy, anyone could make them. Whatever you do, just don’t overmix the batter.
Pros: This is the master basic ultimate muffin recipe that you can turn to time and time again and customize with whatever you have on hand, or whatever you’re craving!
Cons: None!
Would I make this again? Oh yes. Over and over.
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This is truly the Ultimate Muffin recipe. They’re tender, moist, and fluffy, and so full of flavor.
A few years ago, I posted my Ultimate Guide to Muffins where I made eight (!) experimental batches of muffins. I did it to figure out what exactly makes them moist, crumbly, tall, flat, tender, or tough.
All that experimenting was perfect to help me create the best possible base muffin recipe; a super easy homemade recipe you can turn to again and again and know it’ll work perfectly every time.
I love this Ultimate Muffins recipe because you can whatever your heart desires to make them your own. The flavor and add-in options are endless (and I’ve included lots of ideas in the tip box below).
If you’re interested in learning more about the science of baking and getting all of my best baking secrets in one place, I think you’ll love my online class, The Magic of Baking.
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make The ULTIMATE Muffins
How to Make MOIST Muffins
- Measure your flour correctly: I like to use a digital kitchen scale, but if you don’t have one, use the spoon-and-level method. Learn more about the importance of measuring flour correctly here.
- Don’t reduce the sugar: Sugar does SO much more than simply sweetening these muffins. Learn more about sugar’s role in baking here.
- Use REAL buttermilk: I highly recommend using real buttermilk in this recipe. It brings a beautiful tang and helps produce a moist, tall, light muffin. DIY substitutions simply can’t provide the same benefits. Learn more about the science of buttermilk and buttermilk substitutes here.
How to Prevent Liners from Sticking to the Muffins
Some brands of liners tend to stick more than others, so use a high-quality liner. This is my favorite brand of muffin/cupcake liners. If this is a common issue for you, check out my article on How to Prevent Muffin/Cupcake Liners from Sticking here.
How to Bake TALL Muffins
This Ultimate Muffins recipe uses a generous amount of baking powder in the batter and a generous amount of batter in each muffin tin cavity, for beautifully tall Ultimate Muffins. If you’re baking at high altitude, you may need to reduce the amount of baking powder. I also recommend chilling your muffin batter, if time permits. Chilling your muffin batter overnight makes for the BEST ever muffins! Learn more about baking tall muffins here.
How to Prevent Blueberries from Sinking in Muffins
When fruit sinks to the bottom, it gets soggy and can stick to the paper liner. The old trick of tossing your berries with flour to prevent them from sinking doesn’t always work all that well. Not to mention it can disturb the ratio of wet to dry in the recipe. There’s an easy way to prevent that from happening in three steps. I learned this tip from Stella Parks for Serious Eats.
- Hold off on adding your fruit or mix-ins to your muffin batter.
- Take your plain batter and scoop a tablespoon into the bottom of each muffin cavity to fill just the very bottom.
- Gently fold in your mix-ins to the remaining batter. Scoop the batter over the plain muffin batter, dividing evenly between all the cavities. Bake as directed by the recipe!
How to Store Muffins
Muffins are best served the day they’re baked. If you have leftovers, store them for up to 1 day in an airtight container at room temperature. Refresh in a 300°F oven for 5 minutes or reheat in the microwave for 10 seconds. For best results, freeze leftover Ultimate Muffins in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Defrost overnight at room temperature or reheat in the microwave for about 1 minute.
Ultimate Muffin Customization Options
Alternate Muffin Size Directions
- Jumbo muffins: Bake at 450°F for 5 minutes, then reduce to 400°F and continue baking for about 16 minutes. Makes about 6 jumbo muffins.
- Mini muffins: Bake at 350°F for about 12 minutes. Makes about 24 to 28 mini muffins.
Muffin Flavor Variations
- Mix-ins: Add about 1 to 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips, nuts, coconut, dried fruit, candy, etc. to the Ultimate Muffins batter. Be careful not to overmix.
- Flavorings: Add flavorings, such as extracts, fresh citrus zest, or espresso powder, from 1 teaspoon to 2 tablespoons, depending on the desired intensity of flavor.
Fruit Muffins
- Add: 1 1/2 cups fruit (such as berries, apples, etc.), finely chopped and well drained
- Directions: To prevent your fruit from sinking to the bottom, spoon a little bit of plain batter (before adding in the fruit) to the bottom of each muffin cavity. Then, mix in the fruit to the batter and spoon it into each cavity.
- Note: If chilling your batter overnight, add fruit to the mixture just before baking. The juice of your fruit will more than likely bleed into your muffin if you put it in too early.
Chocolate Muffins
- Add: 1/3 cup (28 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
- Directions: Add the cocoa in with the other dry ingredients. Increase buttermilk to 1 1/2 cups.
Banana Muffins
- Add: 3/4 cup mashed overripe banana (from about 2 small bananas)
- Directions: Add in with the wet ingredients.
Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
- 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
- 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon zest
- Directions: Add the poppy seeds with the dry ingredients and the lemon zest with the wet ingredients.
Muffin Toppings, Icings, & Fillings
Streusel Topping
- 1/2 cup (64 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 5 tablespoons (71 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- Directions: In a small bowl combine the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Cut the butter into the mixture using the back of a fork until it is coarse and crumbly. Sprinkle over each muffin, gently pressing into the batter, before baking as directed.
Cinnamon Sugar Topping
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 4 tablespoons (56 grams) unsalted butter, melted
- Directions: Combine all ingredients until mixture looks like wet sand. Sprinkle over every muffin before baking.
Muffin Glaze
- 1/3 cup (42 grams) powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon milk
- Directions: In a small bowl whisk together ingredients until a thick but pourable icing forms. Add more milk to thin, or more sugar to thicken, if needed. Use fresh citrus juice in place of milk, if desired. You may also added in fresh citrus zest to taste.
I share LOTS more muffin flavor customization ideas in my *free* Ultimate Muffin Cheatsheet. Get yours here!
More Muffin Recipes You’ll Love:
- Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
- Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins
- Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins
- Double Chocolate Muffins
- Pumpkin Muffins
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Ultimate Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups (286 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 cup buttermilk*, at room temperature
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (if desired)
- Add-ins and flavorings of your choice
- Coarse or turbinado sugar, for sprinkling (if desired)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Position an oven rack to the upper third of the oven. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.
- In a liquid measuring cup, beat together the buttermilk, butter, eggs, and vanilla. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir until only a few streaks of flour remain. Stir in any desired add-ins, such as fruit or chocolate chips.
- If time permits, cover the muffin batter and allow it to rest in the fridge for 1 hour or overnight. This will produce more moist, tender, and tall muffins.
- Divide evenly among the muffin tin cups. Sprinkle each with coarse sugar, if desired.
- Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 16 to 18 minutes.
Recipe Notes
This post was originally published in 2014 and has been updated with additional baking tips, new photos by Ashley McLaughlin, a new video, and a new PDF guide.
March Baking Challenge
This recipe was the selection for the March 2021 monthly baking challenge! Every month you can join the challenge by baking the recipe and snapping a photo for a chance to win prizes! Learn more about my monthly baking challenges here. Check out everyone’s muffins:
Hi Tessa, Have you used Bake-and-Serve paper cups to bake muffins or cupcakes? Ive used them a couple of times, just placed standing on a baking sheet, but somehow felt the texture of the cupcakes were not the same as when using a muffin tin with paper liners. Are we supposed to place the cups in the muffin tin and bake? They took longer to bake.
Yes, I’d use a muffin tin because it will conduct more even heat around the muffins/cupcakes 🙂
Tessa, I know you said to use a light pan but I have just invested in two really nice quality dark pans because my intention was to make muffins for my college freshman daughter and her suite mates. I did that yesterday with other recipes and they were dry. I am looking to you for advice or else I am giving up baking! Is it possible to use my nice new pans, as I hate to add another costly failure to my list. PS, I consider myself a seasoned cook, so it stinks that I can’t make a homemade muffin!
Ack! That’s a dilemma. The issue with dark pans is that they brown so much more quickly and easily than light pans. With something delicate like a muffin (especially if you’re using the high-to-low baking temperature method here) that extra browning can cause them to become dry and even tough despite how “wet” the batter is. I would unfortunately say that those pans probably won’t be your baking BFFs. Is it possibly to return them? Stores like Sur la Table, Costco, Bed Bath & Beyond all have lenient return policies…
We made these tonight and added lemon and poppy seeds. Excellent! My 16 yo son is in a culinary focus program and one of his “wanted to knows” was a solid muffin base. Nailed it! Thanks!
So happy to hear that! Hope your son is enjoying his program 🙂
Hi! I’m from Brazil and I really want to make this recipe. I’m not quit sure though if we use the same measuring cups. Could you tell me the capacity of your cup? And could you please give me the amount of both sugars in grams?
Thank you!
Hi, great recipe, thanks for the post with pictures. My question is do you find with muffins its best to melt the butter than let it cool before adding ? Also do you usually use regular flour not cake flour with muffins ?
I let it cool just enough that it won’t risk scrambling bits of the egg. Also, I never use cake flour with muffins. I find they end up being a bit too dry and crumbly.
Thanks so much for the muffin base recipe. My friends and I are wondering how we compensate in time for cooking the large muffins. I’m assuming these muffins are cupcake tin size. Thanks again for your good help.
Great question, Barb! After baking for 5 minutes at 450°, reduce the temperature to 400°F (don’t forget this!!) and bake for about another 15-17 minutes. Check for the visual cues, golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
I have been looking forward to making this recipe since I discovered it last week. I have finally made them this morning and they are delicious. Moist, light and fluffy. Just beautiful. My recipe came out much darker than the muffins pictured. I am not sure what If I did something wrong but the taste and texture is there with a bit of a extra crisp because of the darker finish I assume. I will definitely be making them again. I can’t wait for my family to come to try them!
Hi, Ali! I’m thinking your dark muffins could be one of two things. Either your oven runs hot, and in that case I’d purchase an oven thermometer to gauge the correct temperature and adjust as needed. And maybe next time reduce the baking time since everyone’s ovens bake differently. OR, you may have used a dark nonstick muffin tin, which increases browning. I’d suggest getting a lighter color tin. Hope that helps!
would you be able to advise how to add oats to the recipe?
WOW! What a lot of work went into figuring this out. Thank you. I am going to use this recipe to teach a group of kids in our homeschool group. I think it will be fun and delicious! 😀
Awesome, Julia! Hope the kids enjoy it.
This ultimate muffin recipe looks so easy and I love the way you broke everything down. I will be getting creative with some fun add ins for sure. Thanks for doing the hard part! 🙂
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Any time I make muffins, this is the recipe I use. I had some leftover fresh cranberries from Christmas, so today I made cranberry orange muffins (orange zest and some of the juice). I made a topping with brown and white sugars and pecans, mixed in my food processor. Yummy!
Hi…just got your mufin recipe from a post in Facebook, think i’m going to try my hand at it…the question is : is there a substitute for buttermilk ?????? i don’t know what that is and don’t think they sell it here in Brazil, never saw…..is it like cream ?
thanks for the help….