Perfectly tender and incredibly addicting! These gluten-free blueberry muffins have a sparkly sugar crust on top and are moist on the inside, just bursting with fresh blueberries!

blueberry muffins in muffin pan

Not a dry crumb in sight!

These gluten-free blueberry muffins are now a go-to recipe around here. I’ve made these more times than I can count on one hand and, AND, AND I’ve made them with regular all-purpose flour too. Just to be sure that this recipe works for those of us that may not necessarily be on a gluten-free diet.

With our trip to Italy right around the corner, it seems like it’s getting harder and harder to fit everything we need to get done before leaving. Lately, I’ve had super packed days where I’m rushing from the time my alarm clock goes off in the morning to the time I rest my head back down on the pillow at night. For all the crazy mornings, I’m starting to put together things like these gluten-free blueberry muffins and my breakfast croissant boats that make breakfast a grab-and-go affair.

Husband calls these blueberry muffins his breakfast dessert. I call myself lucky if I can get something in my system before lunchtime. 

The BEST homemade gluten-free blueberry muffins:

gluten-free blueberry muffins in muffin liners on wire rack

In the past, I’ve shared a variety of muffin recipes with you guys like my healthy carrot cake muffin. But to be honest, this is the first time I’ve dabbled in a gluten-free blueberry muffin recipe. Of course, you can easily swap out the blueberries for raspberries or even blackberries if you prefer those more. This recipe works well with a simple swap.

As a child, my favorite thing to pick out when we made a trip to Sam’s Club were those freakishly huge muffins from the bakery section. Have you ever had them? They’re so good! They came in a sampler pack with banana nut, blueberry, and chocolate with chocolate chip. Though I haven’t had them since I was a teenager, I distinctly remember always gravitating towards the chocolate variety. It wasn’t until the chocolate muffins ran out that I’d make my way over to the fruit kind. 

Funny how things work out. It’s quite the opposite now. I’ll take a blueberry muffin over chocolate chip any day!

muffins gathered together on white marble with a few fresh blueberries scattered

The baking mix we use in our gluten-free blueberry muffins

First off, you’ll need gluten-free flour. Sometimes it’s sold as a gluten-free all-purpose baking mix. For those that aren’t too familiar with this type of baking mix, it’s usually a combination of brown rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, and white rice flour. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll contain all these ingredients, but most gluten-free baking mixes contain some or all of these ingredients in various proportions. The bag or box will also list it as a ‘1 to 1 baking mix.’ That means that you can directly replace the all-purpose flour with the gluten-free mix and achieve similar results. You can also find it online in case your grocery store doesn’t carry it.

Everything else you need to make gluten-free blueberry muffins:

  • leavening agent
  • softened butter 
  • sugar
  • ground cinnamon/nutmeg 
  • vanilla/almond extract
  • eggs
  • buttermilk 
  • blueberries

Though this recipe is pretty similar to most gluten-free blueberry muffin recipes out there, I feel it has one thing that takes the muffins over the top. Almond extract is an ingredient I often use when making blueberry muffins. Up until recently, I wasn’t a fan of the stuff. To tell you the truth, I still reserve it to use in a few, select muffin recipes. But there’s just something about blueberry muffins, and almond extract works well together. It elevates the flavor and makes it more of a bakery-style muffin. If you aren’t a huge fan, I urge you to still give it a try as you may change your mind, it’s only a ¼ teaspoon!

One more thing I wanted to talk about, buttermilk. Buttermilk gives these gluten-free blueberry muffins the most distinctive, slightly tangy flavor. It tends to work well in recipes that contain berries. The acid in buttermilk also helps these muffins rise nice and high.

mixing bowl with blueberry muffin batter topped with floured fresh blueberries
blueberry muffin batter topped with berries and sugar in muffin pan

How to make the best gluten-free blueberry muffins:

The method is pretty simple. We’ll combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and set that aside. Then, cream the butter and the sugar together and add the eggs one at a time before adding in the extracts and finally alternate the buttermilk and the flour until everything is combined. Just be sure not overmix the batter.

One thing I like to do before folding the blueberries into the batter is wash them, and toss them in a tablespoon of flour. This helps keep the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the muffin.

TIP: If you want your muffins to be more visually appealing, save a few of the blueberries and top the batter with them once you’ve portioned them out into a paper-lined muffin pan. They burst, and the juices run down the side, and the muffins are gaw-geous.

Then just sprinkle the remaining two tablespoons of sugar on your muffins and let them bake. Trying not to eat them while they’re hot out of the oven is the hardest thing! The sugar on top gives these muffins the most distinct crunch. These muffins are addicting!

a tower of gluten-free blueberry muffins on white marble surrounded by muffins in the back

How long will these last?

My experience with gluten-free muffins in the summer is that they don’t really hold up more than two days. Especially not in the Texas heat! So usually, I’ll bake a batch and send some to family or friends and keep a few for us. Or I’ll do option number two below.

Can you freeze gluten-free blueberry muffins?

The answer is, yes, you can! You can bake these muffins off, allow them to come to room temperature, then pop them into a zip-top bag and freeze them for up to 2 months. Just let them defrost in the refrigerator overnight, and they’re ready to go in the morning.

Smear them with a little butter while they’re still warm and eat them over the sink. It’s so much more satisfying this way. I hope these gluten-free blueberry muffins become a Sunday morning staple at your place too!

bitten muffin out of liner on white marble
Yield: 12 muffins

Outrageous Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 28 minutes
Total Time 38 minutes

Perfectly tender and incredibly addicting! These gluten-free blueberry muffins have a sparkly sugar crust on top and are moist on the inside, just bursting with fresh blueberries!

Outrageous Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients

  • 2 cups gluten-free baking mix or all-purpose flour  (plus more)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon EACH: almond extract (optional) AND ground nutmeg (optional)
  • ½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, softened
  • 1 cup and 4 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • ½ cup buttermilk
  • 1 heaping cup blueberries

Instructions

  1. PREP: Preheat the oven to 425F; line muffin pan with paper baking liners and set aside. 
  2. DRY INGREDIENTS: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg; set aside. In another bowl, toss the washed berries with 1 tablespoon of flour.
  3. MAKE: In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter for 1 minute. Then, add 1 cup and 2 tablespoons of sugar and cream together for roughly 1-2 minutes or until the mixture is light and fluffy. Stop and scrape down the sides. With the mixer on the stir setting, add the eggs one at a time and waiting until each is mixed in well before adding the next. Add the vanilla and almond extract. Add half of the prepared flour mixture, followed by all the buttermilk, and then finally the remaining flour until it is well blended, but make sure you don’t overmix. Fold the floured berries into the batter until *just combined* Overmixing will result is a blue/green muffin once they’re baked. 
  4. BAKE: Divide the batter into the prepared muffin pan. Sprinkle the muffins with the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the muffin pan in the oven and immediately drop the oven temperature to 375ºF. Bake the muffins for 26-32 minutes or until the muffins are cooked through. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes

  • If you have unsalted butter, just up the salt to ½ teaspoon total.
  • Leftover muffins can be stored in an airtight container for 2 days and kept at room temperature. You can also pop these into a zip top bag and freeze them for later.

Have you made this recipe?

If you enjoyed this recipe, please consider leaving a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below. You can also share a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #LITTLESPICEJAR, I'd love to see what you made!

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