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Since firing up a new batch of sourdough starter, I’ve been trying to add sourdough quick bread into our breakfast menu. Sourdough muffins obviously bake up faster than bread so my batter is going into muffin tins and baking for 20 minutes rather than a loaf and baking for an hour.
One of the challenges and frustrations I encountered was the wide variety of methods and ingredients and inconsistent results.
I wanted to simplify and come up with a basic recipe that I could slightly modify depending on what type of muffin was being requested or craved. In our home, most often that means Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Sourdough Muffins, Blueberry Sourdough Muffins (or Blackberry Muffins), Banana Nut Sourdough Muffins, or Apple Cinnamon Sourdough Muffins, but you could make the necessary changes to create your own sourdough muffins!
The result was a basic overnight preferment and a simple muffin recipe with a few additions/changes being made for each recipe.
Unlike many muffin recipes, this basic recipe results in a nice tall, rounded muffin instead of one that is flat or worse sunken.
Notes:
•I use the Kitchen Aid mixer to stir in the thick preferment. I’ve decided though that for mornings when I want to be quiet in the kitchen and not wake anyone up, an inexpensive tool like this one might come in awfully handy.
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•I’ve learned that due to the nature of sourdough, greasing the muffin tins first is better than using cupcake papers because the papers stick horribly to the muffin.
•We also like Pumpkin Nut Sourdough Muffins a whole lot and really like the recipe I’ve been using the last few years. So much so, I’ve decided not to fuss with it.
•Applesauce is highly recommended as a butter substitute in the Apple Cinnamon Muffins.
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Basic Overnight Sourdough Muffins Ferment
PrintBasic Overnight Sourdough Muffin Ferment
Ingredients
- 2 cups active sourdough starter
- 1 cup water
- 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour
- 1 ½ cup unbleached all purpose flour
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and mix really well. The dough will be very stiff.
- Cover with a cloth and allow to sit until morning.
Chocolate Chocolate Chip Sourdough Muffins
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PrintChocolate Chocolate Chip Sourdough Muffins
Ingredients
- Basic Overnight Preferment
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup cocoa
- ⅓ cup honey
- ⅓ cup brown sugar (or Sucanat)
- ½ cup butter, melted (oil or applesauce can be substituted)
- ⅓ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- *2 cups shredded zucchini
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 c. nuts, chopped (optional)*
Instructions
- In the morning, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Whisk together the the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa in a small bowl.
- Place the honey, brown sugar, butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla into a mixer and blend thoroughly with the paddle attachment.
- Add in the dry ingredients, mixing well.
- Add the overnight sourdough ferment and stirring until well combined.
- Mix in the chocolate chips, zucchini, and, if desired, nuts.
- Fill greased muffin tins.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffin springs back when lightly touched.
Apple Cinnamon Sourdough Muffins
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PrintApple Cinnamon Sourdough Muffins
Ingredients
- Basic Overnight Preferment
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- *1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg*
- ⅓ cup honey
- ⅓ cup brown sugar (or Sucanat)
- ½ cup butter, melted (oil or applesauce can be substituted)
- ⅓ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- *2 apples, shredded
- 1 cup nuts, chopped (optional)*
Instructions
- In the morning, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Whisk together the the baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl.
- Place the honey, brown sugar, butter, eggs, milk and vanilla into a mixer and blend thoroughly with the paddle attachment.
- Add in the dry ingredients, mixing well.
- Add the overnight sourdough ferment and stirring until well combined.
- Mix in the shredded apples and, if desired, nuts.
- Fill greased muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffin springs back when lightly touched.
Berry Sourdough Muffins
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PrintBerry Sourdough Muffins
Ingredients
- Basic Overnight Preferment
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- *1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg*
- ⅓ cup honey
- ⅓ cup brown sugar (or Sucanat)
- ½ cup butter, melted (oil or applesauce can be substituted)
- ⅓ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- *1 ½ cup berries (blackberries, blueberries, mulberries, etc..)
- 1 cup nuts, chopped (optional)*
Instructions
- In the morning, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Whisk together the the baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon in a small bowl.
- Place the honey, brown sugar, butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla into a mixer and blend thoroughly with the paddle attachment.
- Add in the dry ingredients, mixing well.
- Add the overnight sourdough ferment and stirring until well combined.
- Mix in the berries and, if desired, nuts.
- Fill greased muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffin springs back when lightly touched.
Banana Nut Sourdough Muffins
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Banana Nut Sourdough Muffins
Ingredients
- Basic Overnight Preferment
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup honey
- ⅓ cup brown sugar (or Sucanat)
- ½ cup butter, melted (oil or applesauce can be substituted)
- ⅓ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- *4 bananas, mashed
- 1 cup nuts, chopped (optional)*
Instructions
- In the morning, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Whisk together the the baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.
- Place the honey, brown sugar, butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla into a mixer and blend thoroughly with the paddle attachment.
- Add in the dry ingredients, mixing well.
- Add the overnight sourdough ferment and stirring until well combined.
- Mix in the mashed bananas and, if desired, nuts.
- Fill greased muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffin springs back when lightly touched.
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Enjoy!
What is your favorite type of muffin?
great ideas! I love variety!
thank you for the recipes=)..we just started our first sour dough starter yesterday about 5:00p.m…looking forward to trying these. we just recently brought back grains into our diet due to our daughters allergies and it seems that preparing this way is best. she is anaphylactic to eggs and dairy:(..her allergy is quite surreal..even to the touch of egg and dairy she gets hives. she also has some other allergies and is the only one of our 5 who have this..HOWEVER..I will praise HIM in all things and acknowledge that her allergies have helped us to jump into raising our own food as much as possible and learn TONS about food in general.
so again…thank you for the recipes…lovely timing!!
They all look so good! My sourdough muffins stuck to the paper liners quite badly on the bottoms – won’t make that mistake again!
I am excited to try this. My previous attempts were very tough and “bready” not “cakey” like you want in a muffin. I love my Sourdough bread and adore crackers, would love to add muffins to the list! Thank you.
The texture on these isn’t spot on to a regular muffin, but close enough. I think the edges (that touched the pan) are a bit chewier like a sourdough bread. Just warning you so there is no disappointment 😉
Hey! they we very good and you are right- not as crumbly as a regular muffin, but everyone really enjoyed them…even tho I forgot the salt, drat it! Oh well I’ll get another chance yet!
Wow, what a wealth of recipes in one post. The double chocolate muffins are calling my name, especially with applesauce substituting for butter.
oops…I forgot to say that we use flax seed for an egg replacer and almond milk or water for a dairy milk replacer and that is how I am able to convert such recipes as these…
Thank you, Thank YOU! Love this, I can’t wait to try the pumpkin ones!
These look delicious Quinn. I’ve just pinned this 🙂 I have my sourdough going well, but I’ve never tried anything more than bread so far. I guess the fact I can’t eat it doesn’t motivate me to try anything new, but these do look delicious! I’d better go as it’s milking time…
Blessings
Renata:)
Thanks for all these recipes! Will be trying some of them next week!
These look great! Thanks for sharing.
We don’t use whole grains in our house–if I use all white flour, do you think I would need to make any other changes to the recipe?
No, I wouldn’t think so.
how many muffins does these recipies make per batch?
Between 20-24 depending on how full you fill your tins. I like mine pretty full so I get about 20 🙂
So glad I found this! I LOVE them and make them every week, thanks for sharing!
I love muffins, and I am swimming in sourdough starter so why not give these a whirl? Amazing! I made the banana muffins and sprinkled chocolate chips on the top. I also used half butter half coconut oil. My co-workers are gonna be so in love with me tomorrow!! Thanks for the scrumptious recipes to use up the oceans of starter I have grown!
You’re welcome Jeanne! Hope they’re a hit 🙂
Hello. I am going to try this recipe but have a question. Sourdough starter comes in various consistencies and thicknesses. Some people make theirs thicker and some add much more liquid. I am wondering if there is some baseline of consistency you can share with me about the basic ferment. So, if my sourdough starter is thicker or thinner than yours, I can gauge how much more or less water I should add to achieve a desired consistency. Should my basic ferment be moldable into a ball, be soupy, be of the consistency of cake batter, etc. Thanks in advance.
Excellent point Tim! I’m not sure how on earth the link to the sourdough starter in the preferment was changed, but I fixed it. That goes to my starter recipe and feeding chart which is at 75% hydration. Hope that helps!! (https://www.reformationacres.com/2010/12/sourdough-starter.html)
That link is still broken but based on your reply, I found your sourdough recipe and made a few minor adjustments accordingly. I am baking them right now. I made the banana muffins and added choco chips. Thanks again for sharing.
The comment system read the final parenthesis as part of the link. The edit in the post works and I just edited (and tested) the link in the comments. Hope you enjoy the muffins!
hi quinn! my starter that i’m using right now is 100% hydrated (to use in the recipes from “baking with natural yeast”). even though you use a 75% hydration starter, i had NO problems with the recipe! i made the blueberry and they were superb! even re-heated in the toaster 🙂 they have the perfect amount of sweetness and the texture is great. i fresh mill all of my whole flours, still use some unbleached, but make sure it’s non GMO. this collection of muffins will go in my recipe notebook for safe keeping 🙂
Oh I’m so glad to hear that you liked them! Thank you so much for taking the time to come back and and share your experience with the recipes!! Blessings, Quinn
My husband has made the chocolate chocolate chip muffins twice, and both times were really not good. It tasted like a whole wheat muffin with chocolate chips…
thank you for sharing your new discovery! I love these muffins too and will try to make a loaf next. Thanks for the tips
Hello! I made these over the weekend and while the ferment went great, when I added my fruit, and baked, the dough didn't rise and I had very dense muffins with no crowning. I used the banana nut version above, but didn't add nuts and subbed the four mashed bananas with one and a half peach pie peach and one banana. Do you think I had too much fruit in the batter? I know working with sourdough can be tricky but it rose very well in the ferment so I'm not sure what happened. Thanks!
Looks good, just got my first gift of a starter and am experimenting => lots of starter!
Um….. you have consistently used “T” for baking power and “t” in lower case for baking soda. Does that mean, tablespoon vs teaspoon (and I wonder if that was the problem one baker had with her rise?)
And if tablespoon, is it correct that the US measurement is about 15mL rather than the 20mL size I’m used to?
thanks!
Hi Diane,
You are correct. T. is tablespoon and t. is teaspoon. I’m actually in the painfully slow process of going back through old posts and correcting things like this so hopefully soon, this recipe will be fully written out instead of abbreviated. I would have to google the correct conversion to mL, I’m just not sure. Sorry!
I think I’ve made these twice, and they didn’t rise or crown. However, this time I filled the muffin cups all the way to the top and that helped! Question though… I LOVE a dollop of cream cheese in the middle of my blueberry muffins… If I do that next time, will it make them not rise again?
Nothing bums me out more than a flat muffin top! I always fill my muffins fuller than a recipe calls to get that beautiful crown. Glad you found the trick! I can’t think of any reason why you couldn’t give that cream cheese a try- that sounds divine- why have I never heard of that??! You’ve got me REALLY hoping I’ve got a stray block of cream cheese in the fridge right now. If so I’m totally trying that for breakfast!
I just made the apple muffins. They turned out really great. I don’t have a Kitchen Aid mixer so I mixed it with my hands and then a wish. I added more cinnamon because I love the taste. Other than that, I followed your recipe exactly. Thank very much. I’ll be trying your other muffins as soon as these are gone.
So glad you like them! I agree, more cinnamon never hurts 😀
What do the asterisks mean on certain ingredients in each recipe (zucchini in the chocolate chocolate chip, etc)? I looked for a footnote or something. I didn’t see if someone else already asked this, though. :/
Are they just the unique ingredients in that variation?
Yep! Unique ingredients. The asterisks are to help you see the similarities and differences between the recipes. Sorry for the confusion!
Thank you so much for your website and sharing this recipe. I just took the apple cinnamon muffins out of the oven and I am totally thrilled with them. I am new to sourdough and have a 100% hydration wheat starter – only about 6 weeks old. I used sunflower oil instead of butter. I did as Amanda suggested and almost filled the pans – the rise was wonderful. They popped straight out of my silicone moulds and I sprayed the paper cases with rice bran oil, which worked well.
They are light, soft and delicious. I can’t wait to try the chocolate choc chip version !!
★★★★★
I made the blueberry SD muffins tonight (made the overnight ferment early this morning). Oh wow!! These are soo good! They made so many–I got 30 regular size muffins and 6 minis. Next time I might increase the sweetness just a bit ,but I’m THRILLED to be able to extend my SD starter to muffins now!
I followed other suggestions and almost filled the cups, but I had such a GREAT rise (I have a fantastic very happy starter which helps! ) Also, I had NO sticking to the cupcake liners. Hot or cold, they never stuck, and I didn’t spray the papers. I use the unbleached parchment cups from Amazon, they’re totally natural, from Sweden, inexpensive.
Can’t wait to try the other variations of this recipe now!!
★★★★★