Blueberry & Lavender Muffins

These Blueberry & Lavender Muffins are perfect for a mid-afternoon snack and great for a breakfast on the run. This is a traditional buttermilk muffin recipe with added lavender buds, that work amazingly well with the blueberries.

I’ve always loved lavender as a flavour – lavender cupcakes were always one of the most popular ones, when I was baking for a local tea room.  Dried lavender buds are also great in shortbread biscuits and I recently even had a delicious lavender latte!

Why make this recipe?

• Traditional blueberry muffins with an unusual flavour twist
• Perfect for snack or breakfast on the run
• Soft buttermilk muffins

Ingredients & Possible Substitutions

Buttermilk

Buttermilk reacts with the baking soda, which is what’s going to give these muffins an amazing rise. If you don’t have buttermilk, use whole milk with 1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice (or vinegar). This will slightly curdle the milk and turn it into a sort of buttermilk.

Flour

I’ve used plain – cake (all purpose) flour.

Sugar

Caster sugar is best for this recipe, as it’s light and easy to dissolve into the cake mixture.

Raising agents

We are using both baking powder and baking soda with this recipe, but if you don’t have soda, up the amount of baking powder.

Salt

Don’t skip the salt! It’s as important as all the other ingredients if not more. Salt helps to bring all the flavours together and make these muffins taste amazing!

Milk

Regular milk or plant based milk can be used in this recipe and water will work fine too. There is already dairy in the yoghurt, so even if you just use water, the recipe will work just fine!

Oil

Vegetable oil or sunflower oil works best with this recipe.

Egg

If you are thinking of making this recipe into a vegan version, use 1 table spoon of chia seeds soaked in 3 tablespoons of water. Leave it until the water thickens a bit (the chia seeds will turn it into a jelly like substance)

Lavender

It’s best to use a culinary lavender, which is specially grown for it’s deep flavour and intensity. I prefer to use lavender buds, but you could also use lavender oil. Again make sure it’s a culinary lavender oil, that’s suitable for baking.

If you don’t have lavender, this recipe will work fine without it, but obviously you won’t get the lavender flavour!

Vanilla extract

I like to add vanilla extract in, because I think it ads a lovely flavour, but it can be left out if you don’t have one. Vanilla extract is becoming increasingly more and more expensive, so I treat it as a luxury.

How to make Blueberry & Lavender Muffins

• Preheat your oven to 180C (350F) or Gas mark 3
• Prepare muffin tin lined with large muffin cases or folded parchment paper.
• Measure out all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda) and add them to a large mixing bowl. Whisk with a handheld whisk or use a mixer.
• In a another large bowl or a mixing jug, combine the buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract and whisk quickly with a fork.
• Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and whisk on a very low until all the ingredients are incorporated.
• Add the melted butter and carry on whisking on a slow speed, making sure that the muffin mixture is smooth.
• Add the tablespoon of the lavender buds and whisk them in.
• Carefully fold in the blueberries in with a wooden spoon.
• Divide the muffin batter among 12 large paper lined muffin cups tray. Bake in 180C (Gas Mark 5), 350F oven for about 20-25 minutes or until golden and the tops are firm to the touch.
• Let the tin cool on the rack for 5 minutes and then remove the muffins from the tin and let cool completely.

Batch size

12 large size muffins or 16-20 small-medium size muffins

How to store muffins

Muffins are best stored in an airtight container or plastic bag. If you can’t eat them within 2-3 days, I’d suggest to freeze them. They will be fine in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Can I scale up or down this recipe?

This batch is already fairy large as it makes the American size muffins (large over the top muffins), rather than the English version.

If you fancy making more just double up the recipe, but make sure you have enough muffin trays and space in the oven as your muffins will need to be baked all at the same time.