This spectacular raspberry muffin recipe gives you dreamy goodness with a tender crumb, amazing flavor from vanilla, lemon zest, and raspberries, and the crunch of coarse sugar.
Baking always feels a little like a miracle, doesn’t it? You take ordinary ingredients, mix them together and out of the oven comes this delectable creation. Of course, it’s not really the miraculous but science at work here. But we’ll still pretend that every wave of the whisk is the flick of a wand. Swirl it around, say the magic words, and – poof – the most amazing thing is sitting right in front of you!
What We Love Most About This Raspberry Muffin Recipe
When we say we love these muffins, we’re not exaggerating. Here is what we love the most…
That height! These beauties are impressively tall, like what you see in a bakery window. It’s the thing you see that makes you pop inside for breakfast or a snack to go with your coffee.
That texture! These truly have the perfect muffin texture – a soft tender crumb that melts in your mouth topped by crunchy coarse sugar.
That flavor! Oh. My. Goodness. This is the best part! At the back, you have soft vanilla with hints of lemon. Then you get hits of tart-but-sweet raspberries for the perfect combination of flavors. Each bite leaves you craving more. Top your warm muffin with a smear of salted butter and you will be absolutely swooning!
Are you ready to make some? Jump down to the recipe and start baking, or keep reading for all you ever wanted or needed to know about creating these tiny masterpieces.
The Method
We always love a good method explanation because, well, it really makes a difference! Our raspberry muffin recipe uses what is traditionally called the “muffin method.” Clearly, this is meant for muffins and has been used to make muffins for many, many years. There’s a reason for that – it makes a really great muffin! Use this method for quick breads, too, or anytime you are using a liquid fat.
What is the Muffin Method?
The Muffin Method is super easy and probably super familiar. You mix together all of your dry ingredients – the flour, leavening agent (here that’s baking powder), and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together all of your wet ingredients – eggs, milk, yogurt, vanilla, lemon zest, and melted butter. You put these together and mix just until it is barely combined before gently stirring in your fruit. Portion them into muffins cups, bake, and that’s all there is to it!
Creating Tall Muffins
To create more height in our muffins, we start them in a really hot oven. This encourages the outside to set quickly and support the rest of the batter as it expands upward. The oven temp is then reduced so that the muffins can cook through without burning.
Always Weigh Ingredients!
No matter the method, you will always always always get the best results when you use a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients! It is the absolute, hands-down, best way to ensure that you are using the same amounts every single time, and that you are using the same amounts as we did when we developed our raspberry muffin recipe. When you use the same amounts, you will get the same results. Plus, it’s easier and requires less clean-up. Who doesn’t want that?? This scale is our favorite.
Ingredients in Our Raspberry Muffin Recipe
You will find a full list of ingredients in the recipe below. For now, here are a few that make a difference.
All Purpose Flour – We really wanted to use cake flour for this one, reasoning that with it’s lower protein content it would produce a tender muffin with a smaller crumb. And it did! But that muffin didn’t rise quite as tall. The higher protein of all purpose flour, and the structure it supports, really did make a difference here. It also produced a very tender crumb. Just be careful not to overmix the batter after the wet and dry ingredients are combined. We love King Arthur’s all purpose flour.
Baking Powder – In order to have the structure we wanted for our tall bakery-style muffins, we needed a slightly acidic batter. Baking soda will react to acidic ingredients like yogurt, reducing the acidity of the batter, resulting in less of a rise. Baking soda basically reacts with itself, leaving the batter overall at the pH level we want to produce a nice, tall muffin.
Yogurt – That acidic ingredient we talked about? This is it. It also provides a little bit of fat and some moisture. Greek yogurts tend to be drier generally (that’s what keeps them nice and thick), so we prefer regular old plain full-fat yogurt. Our Instant Pot Vanilla Yogurt works really well.
Lemon Zest – This is a flavor component and we add just enough to have that background hint of lemon. It just goes so well with the raspberries! Adding to the wet ingredients helps to spread the flavor throughout the batter because the fat will hold onto it and carry it along. A microplane zester like this one is the perfect tool to use for zesting.
Coarse Sugar – This is simply regular sugar with a large, coarse texture used more for accent and decoration than to sweeten the batter. The large crystals don’t melt like the smaller crystals of granulated sugar, so even after time in a hot oven, they stay nice and crunchy. Demerara sugar is one type of coarse sugar. It’s unrefined, so retains a light brown color though it is very different from brown sugar. Sugar In The Raw is demerara sugar. Sanding sugar is another type of coarse sugar, typically used in decorating, and comes in many colors. Use whichever you can find.
Serving Your Raspberry Muffins
Is hoarding muffins a bad thing? Okay, maybe you should share these, but grab at least one for yourself while it is still warm and enjoy it with a cup of coffee. It will make any weekday feel special. You deserve it!
Or take a big batch of these to a friend who needs a little pick-me-up. Add them to your own family breakfast or brunch table.
Here are a few more things to make and bring along wherever you are going!
- Egg Casserole with Bacon and Spinach
- Mom’s Cinnamon Swirl Quick Bread
- Cranberry Orange Breakfast Cookies
Enjoy!
Bakery Style Raspberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 13-3/4 ounces (3 cups) all purpose flour
- 11-3/4 ounces (1-1/2 cup) granulated sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt or scant 1/2 teaspoon table salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 5 ounces (2/3 cup) whole milk, at room temperature
- 4 ounces (5 tablespoons) plain yogurt, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 3 ounces (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
- 12 ounces (2-1/2 cups) fresh raspberries (or frozen, not thawed)
- 2 tablespoons coarse sugar such as demerara or sanding sugar
Instructions
- Prep: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line two muffin trays with paper liners in every other space.
- Mix: Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, yogurt, vanilla, and lemon zest. Slowly whisk in the melted butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Toss the raspberries with 1 tablespoon of flour, then gently fold them into the batter. Set aside to rest for 15 minutes.
- Bake: After the batter has rested, fill the muffin cups all the way to the top with batter. Sprinkle the tops with sanding sugar, if using, and place both pans into your preheated oven, side by side on the same rack or on two separate racks, making sure there is enough room above the lower rack for the muffins to fully rise. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees F. and bake for another 20 minutes, or until the tops are domed and golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it but with no wet batter.
- Cool: Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes in the pans before allowing the muffins to finish cooling directly on a wire rack.
Notes
- Completely cooled muffins can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days or frozen in a tightly sealed container for up to a month. Thaw in a low oven or at room temperature.
- We prefer metal muffin trays for this (instead of the popular silicone pans) because the heat retention is better, yielding taller muffins.
