Copycat Panera Wild Blueberry Muffins are a sizeable treat you’ll want to wake up for. They are bursting with blueberry flavor and topped with buttery streusel.
My family and I live just a few blocks from a Panera. This is dangerous, I assure you, especially when our township gifted us with a sidewalk on our busy road a few years back. Now I can walk or bike, pretend I am Parisian (ha!) and justify frequent trips for baguettes, iced coffees and muffins. I am burning calories, after all (seriously, it’s a FEW blocks, I’m delusional).
Lately, I’ve been obsessed with their Wild Blueberry Muffins. It’s just a blueberry muffin, but something about the course sugar crunch on top and the dense, bakery goodness underneath has just captivated me. So I decided it was high-time I baked a copycat batch myself.
I did some looking on the Interwebs, searching for dense, bakery-style muffins, and the recipe I liked best was thanks to Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy. I made just a few changes to her original recipe and guess what? You’d think you’d trekked all the way to Panera for these babies! A six-capacity, jumbo muffin tin I think is a must for these. But other than that, no exotic ingredients or equipment is required. Easy-peasy as my kiddos would say. What are you waiting for? Bake a batch and impress your friends!
- 1/3 c. coarse (or raw) sugar
- 1/3 c. all-purpose flour
- 4 T. unsalted butter, cold and cut into four pieces
- 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
- 3/4 c. granulated white sugar
- 2 t. baking powder
- 1/2 t. salt
- 1/3 c. vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- old-fashioned buttermilk (see directions for measurement)
- 2 t. vanilla extract
- 1 c. frozen wild blueberries
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line one 6-cup jumbo muffin pan with paper liners.
- In a small bowl, combine the coarse sugar, 1/3 cup flour and cold butter. Using a pastry cutter, mix the topping well, until it is fine and crumbly. Store in refrigerator while making muffin batter.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the 1 and 1/2 cups of flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a 1-cup glass measuring cup, measure the oil and add the egg. Whisk together. Pour in enough buttermilk until liquid is 8 fluid ounces... a little more than 1/3 cup of buttermilk. Add the vanilla and whisk again.
- Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir gently with a wooden spoon or spatula until just a few streaks of flour remain. Add the blueberries and mix gently until evenly distributed in the muffin batter.
- Divide batter evenly between 6 muffin cups (about 1/2 cup batter each). Sprinkle the top of each muffin generously with the topping.
- Bake muffins on the center rack of oven for 28 - 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center of muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool completely. Store in an air-tight container for up to 2 days.
Coreen Hart says
Wow! We love blueberry muffins at our house, but don’t buy them often. Now this special topping has hit my sweet tooth – at least in theory – and I have to make them! The two full cups of blueberries is luxurious! The crunchy streusel topping is the first thing you taste, followed by sweet cake-like batter and the abundant blueberries. I have a blueberry bush on the patio in a large blue half barrel. and in a couple of months will be able to makek these with our own blueberries. Has anyone tried these with strawberries or raspberries? If so, how did they come out?
foodtasticmom says
What a great comment, thank you so much! I bet raspberries would be equally as good but I have not tried them. I have a feeling fresh strawberries might be a little to “wet” for this recipe.
Anne Peters says
As I read the ingredients, I was wondering if you could use fresh instead of frozen blueberries.you answered my question.
Cara Cepat Tidur says
What a delicious muffin! I printed this recipe and my wife made it for me.. it is sooo delicious and addictive 😀
foodtasticmom says
Thank you so much Cara! I am so glad you and your wife enjoyed these muffins!
Peggy says
I wonder if cranberries would work in this recipe?
foodtasticmom says
Yes I think they would. You might want to roughly chop them a bit – to help them bake more evenly.
Crystal says
These really were delicious. But instead of the streusel topping I made a glaze and applied 10-15 minutes before taking them out of the oven. The glaze cooked on and made a wonderful sweet crunch on top, just like Panera. I also cooked in a regular sized muffin tin and they were done in 20-25 minutes. I also didn’t have buttermilk so I used about a quarter cup of vanilla Greek yogurt in place of some of the milk. Still wonderful. My daughter loves them and I will definitely be making them again!
foodtasticmom says
Wonderful – and I am impressed with your kitchen innovations 🙂