Cardamom Blueberry Muffins Recipe

All muffins are good muffins in our book, but some recipes simply stand out above the rest. While a blueberry muffin alone traditional yet tasty, it's easy to take things up a notch with the addition of an unexpected spice: cardamom. Recipe developer Jennine Bryant of The Marshside Pantry came up with this easy and delicious cardamom blueberry muffin recipe, and she explains what makes the cardamom addition special. "The cardamom in this recipe adds a beautiful depth of flavor with it's warming, spiced citrus taste," she explains. "It pairs really well with the blueberry and makes the muffin so much more flavorful!"

As for her favorite part? "I love the texture of the muffins in this recipe, and how beautifully the taste of blueberries pairs with the flavor of cardamom. They really are delicious, it's hard to stop at one," she shares. These are great for an on-the-go breakfast, to send in a school lunch, or to enjoy as a sweet treat after dinner.

For this recipe, you will need unsalted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, Greek yogurt, flour, cardamom, baking powder, salt, and blueberries. The recipe also includes the optional ingredients of brown sugar or pearl sugar to add on top.

Go ahead and preheat the oven to 400 F. Then, use 1 tablespoon of butter to grease a muffin tin and set it to the side.

You will need a medium-sized bowl to add the plain flour, ground cardamom, baking powder, and salt. Use a whisk to combine and then set aside. 

For this step, you will need another mixing bowl. Toss in the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. "The butter should be melted rather than solid, as it creates a more moist muffin and interacts differently with the sugar when mixed, whilst still adding that delicious buttery flavor which can be lost with oil," Bryant notes. She also adds that "the mixture of white and brown sugar also adds to the moistness of the finished muffin, and the brown sugar gives more depth of flavor." 

Then, crack the eggs into the batter one at a time. Next, you can add in the vanilla extract and Greek yogurt. "Greek yogurt interacts well with the baking powder to give the muffin more of a rise while adding a light tang to the overall flavor, softening the sweetness," Bryant shares. Give the batter a few stirs and make sure to combine everything really well. 

Combine the flour and the cardamom mixture with the wet ingredients until everything is thoroughly combined. Then, add the remaining tablespoon of flour to the blueberries and gently mix them until they are coated.

Once coated, fold the blueberries into the muffin batter. "You can definitely swap out the fresh blueberries for frozen blueberries," Bryant says. "If you do that then you'd want to use them frozen and directly out of the freezer, so that the blue color doesn't bleed into the muffin batter. The size of the blueberries, whether fresh or frozen, is most important though for the structure of the muffin. If you use large blueberries, the muffin batter can struggle to rise properly around them." 

Fill the muffin cups with batter and then sprinkle the top of each one with sugar (if you opt to use it). Pop the pan into the preheated oven for 5 minutes at 400 F, then reduce the heat to 350 F and let them bake for 15 minutes. "Making sure they go in at a higher temperature and then dropping it, causes the muffins to rise more," Bryant says. Once you touch the muffins and they bounce back, you know they're ready to come out.

After you remove the muffins from the oven, set them on the counter to cool for about 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes pass, remove the muffins from the pan, and allow them to cool further on a wire rack. These are best enjoyed on the same day, but you can also store them in a sealed container for two days. "These muffins are a great midday snack and they do pair really well with a cup of coffee or tea! Chai [tea] goes really well as it pairs with the cardamom," Bryant says.