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Raspberry Muffins are slightly sweet, tender, and the perfect addition for your next breakfast or brunch. They have the perfect tangy hint of lemon with both lemon juice and zest for the best flavor. These muffins can even be frozen to enjoy for months.
Muffins of all varieties are a favorite in our house, but these Lemon Raspberry Muffins are a new favorite. Some other muffins using fruit are these Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins and Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake Muffins. You can even sneak some veggies into muffins with these Zucchini Carrot Oatmeal Muffins.
The lemon and raspberry flavor of these muffins is seriously out of this world! The lemon gives a slightly tart taste to offset the sweetness from the raspberries. It’s a perfect recipe to use when raspberries are ripe and in season, but you can also swap in frozen berries.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Here are the ingredients that you need to make raspberry muffins including some easy swaps you can make:
- Butter: both softened butter for the muffin batter and cold butter to make the crumble topping. I like using unsalted butter so I can control the salt, but you can use salted butter and add less salt.
- Granulated Sugar
- Egg: let your egg come to room temperature with the butter, for best results.
- Vanilla Extract:Â This is one of those places I don’t like to skimp. I always use pure vanilla rather than imitation.
- Lemon: you’ll use both the zest and juice for the best lemon flavor.
- Milk: you can use whole milk, 2%, or even nonfat milk.
- All-Purpose Flour: Feel free to use whole wheat or gluten-free.
- Baking Powder: Check the expiration date – expired baking powder may prevent your muffins from rising.
- Salt
- Fresh Raspberries: while fresh berries are ideal when making muffins, you can substitute frozen raspberries for the fresh! Do not thaw the frozen raspberries before adding to the batter. Keeping them frozen helps them hold their shape while mixing into the batter and the muffin bake time is long enough for the frozen raspberries to cook.
- Brown Sugar: you can use light or dark brown sugar for the topping.
How to Make Raspberry Muffins
Mixing up the muffin batter is so easy and the crumble comes together in minutes. See the simple steps below:
Prep. First get your oven preheating and grease or line a standard-sized muffin pan. You can use paper liners or spray well with cooking spray. You can use a mini or jumbo-sized muffin pan, but the bake time will be different.
Make the batter. Start by creaming the softened butter and sugar together then add the egg, vanilla, and lemon juice and zest. Once well combined, beat in the milk. Use a separate bowl to mix together the dry ingredients and add to the batter. Fold the flour into the batter until just combined. Be careful not to overmix the batter. The final step is to gently fold in the raspberries, being careful to not break them up too much.
Make crumble topping. Combine the brown sugar, flour, and lemon zest then cut in the cold butter. You can use a pastry cutter or a fork to cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.
Fill muffin pan. Divide the batter among the lined muffin cups. You’ll want to fill the cups about ¾ full so there is room for the muffins to rise. Top the batter with the crumble topping.
Bake. Bake the raspberry muffins for about 25 minutes. The muffins are done when they are lightly golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
Storage and Freezing
These Lemon Raspberry Muffins are a great make-ahead treat. Make a batch (or two!) to enjoy throughout the week or freeze to enjoy for months.
Storage: Leftover muffins can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container. The muffins will keep for up to 5 days.
Freezing: You can freeze leftover muffins. Add the baked and cooled muffins to an airtight bag and freeze for up to 3 months. You can thaw the frozen muffins at room temperature or microwave for a few seconds before serving.
Recipe Tips
Check out my favorite tips to make these raspberry muffins even easier!
Room temperature ingredients matter. Room temperature butter is important to be able to cream with the sugar. It is very difficult to cream cold butter, so make sure to let your butter sit out and soften before starting. Using room temperature eggs helps the egg combine in the batter more evenly. A great rule of thumb is whenever a recipe calls for room temperature butter, then room temperature eggs should also be used.
Don’t overmix the batter. When making muffins, it’s important to only mix the batter until just combined. If you overmix the batter, you’re going to be left with a denser muffin due to the gluten in the flour. It’s much better to have a tender and fluffy muffin.
Toss the raspberries with flour. If you want to prevent the raspberries from sinking to the bottom of the muffins, you can toss them with flour. Just take a couple tablespoons of the flour from the recipe and toss with the raspberries before folding into the batter.
Use an ice-cream scoop. For easy filling, use an ice-cream scoop to fill the muffin cups. I like using the kind with the lever to pop out the batter. This makes it so quick and it evenly fills the muffin cups.
Don’t have raspberries? Instead of raspberries, you can substitute another berry! Blueberries are one of my favorites to swap in (Lemon Blueberry Muffins anyone?), but you can also use diced strawberries to keep that pretty red color.
More Delicious Muffins to Try
Lemon Raspberry Muffins
Ingredients
Muffin Batter
- ¼ cup butter softened
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 lemon zested and juiced
- ½ cup milk
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups fresh raspberries
Topping
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- â…“ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (from a second lemon)
- ¼ cup cold butter cubed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place paper liners into the cups of a 12 count muffin pan.
- In a large mixing bowl and with an electric mixer at medium speed, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy; 2-3 minutes. Beat in egg, vanilla, and the zest and juice of one lemon. Beat in milk.
- In a medium size bowl mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Gently mix into the wet ingredients until just combined. Gently fold in the raspberries.
- Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. *Note - if you don't want to use paper liners, be sure to grease the muffin pan really well.
- In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, flour and 2 teaspoons lemon zest. Cut in butter with fork or pastry cutter until crumbly. Sprinkle over each muffin.
- Bake muffins in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in muffin comes out clean.
- Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer Kristin Maxwell of "Yellow Bliss Road" is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. For accurate calorie counts and other nutritional values, we recommend running the ingredients through your preferred online nutritional calculator. Calories and other nutritional values can vary depending on which brands were used.
