These soft and fluffy Jordan Marsh blueberry muffins are inspired by Jordan Marsh’s famous department store muffins.
I’ve loved the classic Jordan Marsh blueberry muffin recipe since I found it on the New York Times Cooking a few years ago and have found myself on the journey to perfect it. It’s a simple blueberry muffin recipe that uses many pantry staple ingredients. Nothing fancy, no frills, just good muffins.
These are Jordan’s Marsh’s blueberry muffins with a slight twist. What is that twist? Nothing fancy, just a few touches that make them even better. And by a few touches I mean three that are optional but take the muffins from 10/10 to 11/10.
- Buttermilk instead of whole milk: The original recipe uses half a cup of whole milk. I substituted with buttermilk, which has approximately the same water percentage as whole milk but greater acidity. The acid breaks down glutens in the flour, which makes the muffins soft and tender.
- A pinch of cinnamon: I love the warmth that a hint of cinnamon adds, and it also brings out the blueberry flavor.
- Resting the batter before baking: Resting the batter is also optional, but makes for big, fluffy muffins. While the batter rests, the starches in the flour absorb liquid, which causes them to swell and create a thicker batter. In addition, resting allows any gluten that may have formed during the mixing process, which leads to a softer, more tender muffin.
What are Jordan Marsh Muffins?
Jordan Marsh muffins are famous blueberry muffins that were baked at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston. While Jordan Marsh closed in the mid-1990s, their muffins remain iconic and popular to this day. The muffins are known for being moist, buttery, and having a sparkling sugar topping. Many claim they also had a cake-like texture and were bursting with berry flavors.
Since muffins are pretty much just cake disguised as breakfast food, this is ideal.
Ingredients Needed
- All-Purpose Flour: For the best results, measure flour with a digital food scale (in grams). This will ensure consistent results each time you make the muffins, as my one cup of flour may be different from your one cup.
- Unsalted Butter: Butter brings flavor to the base batter. If using salted butter you can slightly reduce the amount of added salt in the recipe.
- Granulated Sugar: Used to sweeten the muffins as well as sprinkled on top before baking.
- Eggs, at room temperature: Soak eggs in a bowl of hot water for 5-10 minutes before baking.
- Buttermilk: Makes the muffins moist and tender. If you don’t have buttermilk you can substitute kefir of whole milk.
- Blueberries: I personally like fresh blueberries since I don’t like how frozen berries bleed into the batter.
- For frozen berries, you will need to bake the batter for longer
- Baking Powder: Leavening agent
- Salt: This ingredient both brings out and balances the flavors.
Tips for Jordan Marsh’s Blueberry Muffins
The steps and ingredients for these blueberry muffins are fairly straightforward and simple. To guarantee the best results though, I’m sharing a few tips so that you can make the best blueberry muffins.
- Use parchment muffin cups: Parchment baking cups, like the ones pictured or these here are great because you can fill them a lot higher than standard cupcake liners, which means bigger muffins.
- Room temperature ingredients: Make sure that the eggs and buttermilk (or milk) are warmed as close to room temperature as possible before baking for the best texture. Cold ingredients don’t mix together well, which can cause the batter to split or be uneven.
- Check your leavening agents: Did you know that baking powder can lose its potency over time? If it’s been more than six months since you’ve replaced open baking powder then it may be time to replace. We’re here for big, fluffy muffins hehe.
- Generous sugar topping: for beautiful, sugar-coated muffin tips I recommend sprinkling around ½ tsp of sugar on top of each before baking. I find that using any less than that and you don’t really see the results.
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Are you interested in baking these cookies but aren’t ready yet? You can hover (or tap on mobile/tablet) over any image in this post to save it to Pinterest.
Happy baking my friends and hope you love your blueberry muffins!
More Blueberry & Muffin Recipes
Brown Butter Blueberry Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins
This recipe is inspired by the famous Jordan Marsh blueberry muffins. I took their iconic recipe and made some minor tweaks to make them (in my opinion hehe) even better! They're soft, buttery, fluffy, and bursting with fresh blueberries.
Ingredients
- ½ cup (113g) unsalted butter, softened
- 1¼ cup (250g) sugar, plus more for topping
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 2 cups (240g) all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- Pinch of cinnamon
- ½ cup buttermilk, room temperature
- 1½ cups fresh blueberries, divided + 1 tsp flour
Instructions
- In a mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on high speed for 2-3 minutes, until fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl between each addition and beat until everything is fully combined.
- In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon together.
- On low speed, fold in half the flour, then the buttermilk, and then the remaining flour until the dry ingredients are just combined. Avoid over mixing.
- Use a fork to mash half of the blueberries, and toss the other half with 1 tsp of flour. Gently fold both sets of blueberries into the batter until they are evenly distributed.
- Cover the batter and let it sit out on the counter for 30-45 minutes. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 375°F and line 12 muffin tins with parchment cups.
- After resting, use an ice cream scoop to divide the batter evenly between the muffin tins, filling them to the top. Bake for 28-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Let the muffins cool for 15 minutes before serving. Best enjoyed warm with butter!
Notes
Measuring Flour: I highly recommend using a digital food scale to accurately measure the flour. If you do not have one, use the scoop-and-level method. Spoon the flour into a measuring cup (making sure not to pack it in) and use a knife to level it out.
Substituting Buttermilk: If you do not have buttermilk you can substitute whole milk or kefir. Avoid using fat-free or skim milk.
Resting the Batter: Even though it's annoying, don't skip this step! Resting the batter helps create taller, more tender muffins.
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