Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

These whole wheat blueberry muffins are tender, fluffy, naturally sweetened, and made with applesauce, coconut oil, and maple syrup! They can be made with fresh or frozen blueberries and are perfect for weekend mornings!

**AUGUST 2019 UPDATE**

This recipe was originally posted in June of 2016, and is probably my favorite blueberry muffin, ever. It was in desperate need of new photos and less wordy recipe instructions, so I’m re-posting it today. I’ve left the original blog post in tact below, for the sake of nostalgia. Feel free to scroll straight to the bottom to get the recipe, if you’ve already read this old blog post!

Simple, maple-sweetened blueberry muffins that are jam-packed full of fresh berries are my idea of old-school comfort food. There’s nothing fancy about them, yet they are beloved by most everyone; pull a fresh batch of muffins out of the oven on Sunday morning and watch everyone flock to the kitchen to gobble them up. They’re so perfectly nostalgic, three of us managed to disappear a whole batch in two days. I don’t usually hype things up to be the best ever, but this might be the last blueberry muffin recipe I ever need.

Yes, I’m boldly claiming they are that good.

I’ve already expressed my concerns for the muffins-as-cupcakes-in-disguise epidemic, but blueberry muffins seem to be the only safe territory. Their fruity composition and rustic nature means people want their blueberry muffins to be hearty and healthful. Ingredients like whole wheat flour and maple syrup aren’t seen as weird, health-food additions, but as standard operating procedure for these breakfast beauties.

These muffins start with a simple base of eggs, maple syrup, melted coconut oil (or butter), and applesauce. The applesauce isn’t used to make these low-fat, it’s actually a key component to getting soft, moist muffins and a little extra natural sweetness. Into the wet ingredients goes lemon zest to brighten up the flavor of the applesauce, white whole wheat flour, and a veritable mountain of blueberries. The soft, jammy splotches of cooked berries threaded through every muffin is my favorite part, so don’t be stingy here.

This year I’m partnering with Quonquont Farm to bring you plenty of fresh, seasonal recipes using their glorious fruit. We’ve been visiting Quonquont for years, and are even getting married there this summer! We spend hours every summer picking enough blueberries to fill our bellies and our freezer, and long for July to come again once we’ve run through our winter stock. There’s really nothing like a fresh blueberry off the bush, warm from the sun, at the height of summer.

If my life was made into a movie, there’d be a long, slow shot of me laying out in their blueberry field surrounded by buckets of berries and the sounds of the farm. Really, I couldn’t exaggerate my love for their blueberries if I tried. 

Everyone should have a simple, wholesome, old-school blueberry muffin recipe to pull out on weekend mornings, and I hope this will become yours. Quonquont will be open for pick-your-own blueberries in just a few weeks, so you know where to find me if I’m MIA all summer.

If you make this recipe, let me know what you think! Leave a comment below, or take a picture of your muffins and share it with me on Instagram so I can see! Happy weekend, friends!

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

Time: 30 minutes
Yields: 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 cup virgin coconut oil, melted
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Zest from 1 lemon
• 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (spelt, einkorn, all-purpose, or a GF blend all work here)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 cups blueberries (if frozen, don’t defrost)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners, or grease with non-stick spray. Set aside.
2. Whisk together the applesauce, coconut oil, maple syrup, eggs, and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Add all remaining ingredients, including blueberries, and stir to combine.
3. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups (I like to use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to portion them out), then bake for 20-22 minutes, or until golden and cooked through.
4. Allow muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the pan before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Leftover muffins keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, or can be frozen and reheated in the microwave before eating.

NOTES:
This recipe can be cut in half to yield a small batch of 6 muffins; baking time should be about the same, give or take a minute. The lemon zest in these muffins doesn’t make them lemon flavored, but simply helps to brighten up the flavor of the applesauce. If you want a noticeably lemony muffin, double up on the lemon zest.

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