Triple Berry Muffins are high rising muffins bursting with tart berry flavor. We use fresh or frozen berries for a deliciously convenient breakfast treat. (This latest muffin recipe is a new favorite in the test kitchen!)
you’re going to love these triple berry muffins
Ok, this one is really good, people! In fact, we made this recipe three times, and ate just about every last muffin. It’s everything you could want in a perfect muffin ~ they’re moist, soft, and cake-y, with excellent flavor. How did we do it? We’ve hit on the perfect ratio of butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour and leavening for the texture, and nailed that bright flavor thanks to a generous amount of vanilla extract, lemon zest, and of course the bright, tart berries.
did I mention they’re a breeze to make?
- Melted butter means no creaming.
- No mixer necessary, just use a good old spoon.
- You can do it in one bowl, just sift your dry ingredients right into your wet.
- Use frozen berries right from the freezer for convenience.
why I use lemon zest and juice in mixed berry muffins
You might be wondering why there is lemon juice and zest in a berry muffin recipe. I do this for two reasons:
- I use lemon zest to brighten the berry flavor. Much like vanilla, lemon can bring out flavors and make them even more vibrant. The flavor of lemons is concentrated in the peel, so grating the bright yellow zest into my batter gives these muffins a distinctive flavor.
- A bit of lemon juice adds acidity to the batter, which helps it rise. The leaveners react with the acid to form carbon dioxide, which in turn rises the muffins.
Baking with frozen berries
One of my favorite baking rituals of the year is in late winter when I use up the last of my precious frozen berries we picked the previous summer. That means sometime in February or March we bake something delicious with the random assortment that’s left in the freezer and get to enjoy that bright taste of fresh summer fruit. I used a combo of raspberries, blackberries, and black raspberries, but feel free to get creative.
- If you don’t have a stash of berries in your freezer, store-bought frozen berries will work great too.
- Use your frozen berries straight from the freezer, don’t thaw them first.
- I actually prefer to bake with frozen berries because they don’t get crushed or stain my batter when I fold them in.
- Smaller frozen berries work best for muffins: avoid whole strawberries or very large blackberries.
- Even when I’ve got fresh berries I’ll often flash freeze them before I bake with them!
top 3 tips for high rise muffins
- make sure your oven is preheated – a hot, preheated oven helps muffins rise to their full potential.
- for large high rise muffins fill your muffin cups right to the top.
- a combination of baking powder and baking soda gives these muffins their nice lift. Make sure your baking powder is fresh.
reheat those leftovers
These muffins reheat beautifully in the microwave the next day – just microwave them for about 20 seconds and they will be (almost) as good as hot out of the oven.
More great uses for your frozen (or fresh) berries!
- Raspberry Champagne Sorbet
- Blackberry Cobbler Bars
- Blueberry Lemon Breakfast Cake
- Raspberry Coffee Cake
- Strawberry Buttermilk Cake
Triple Berry Muffins
Video
Equipment
- muffin pan
- muffin liners
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups whole milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- zest of 1 medium lemon
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups mixed berries (fresh or frozen), heaped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F and line a 12-cup muffin tin with muffin tin liners.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the melted butter, sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla extract, lemon zest and lemon juice.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and flour.
- Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix to combine, until there are no pockets of dry flour left.
- Gently fold in the berries, just until evenly distributed.
- Divide the batter between the prepared muffin cups. This recipe makes enough for 12 large muffins, so you should be able to fill your muffin cups all the way to the top.
- Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until risen and just starting to turn golden on top.
Easy and great-tasting little treat! Rose beautifully. Made these to use some frozen blueberries that were taking up space in my freezer. I added a teaspoon of homemade cranberry jam in the centre that was leftover from the holidays and they still rose and weren’t too acidic.
That sounds fantastic!
This was easy and delicious. Made 16 good size muffins. They are light and fluffy, not too sweet. Frozen berries (shaken with a bit of flour) were perfect in the batter. Topped with streusel topping. Nice little breakfast treat for all.
Easy delicious recipe, however, I got 12 large and 24 mini muffins out of this recipe…I’m thinking maybe perhaps because I used large blueberries it made for an extra large batter?? Not complaining! Highly recommend
The lemon zest is a great addition!
Good straight forward recipe that I always have all the ingredients. I’ve swapped orange for the lemon and whatever fruit I have on hand to use up.
I find I get 15 or 16 muffins out of this batter, not a bad thing. You must have much larger muffin tins than me. Lol
These came out INCREDIBLE! The flavor is outrageously good, the texture is moist and they look like something served at a bed and breakfast or put on the cover of a dessert magazine. I had mixed frozen berries that I used. And, I used a half teaspoon of almond extract with the little bit of vanilla extract I had left. I was so surprised at how good they came out. If you need a muffin fix like I do, get to making you some of these.
We are making this for a 2nd time today because they are such a hit. We are both gluten and dairy free and this recipe works so well. Using Bob’s Red Mill one to one gluten-free flour, B. Cell vegan margarine and almond milk with a mixture of semi-thaward frozen fruit. Whatever we have in the freezer. That it has worked out so incredibly well. They are huge, fluffy, moist muffins that barely last 3 days in my house. I’m looking forward to trying many more of your recipes to see if I can have success with them in a gluten-free version.
Delicious muffins, I didn’t have a lemon for lemon zest but they were still delicious
These were perfect and delicious despite the fact that I used vegan substitutes for the eggs (Just Egg), milk (Not Milk), and butter (Miyoko’s). I used frozen berries and they took a bit longer to bake–about 40 minutes.
This was the best recipe I have ever come across in which my muffins came out perfect. There were berries in every bite.