Here comes another amazing vegan recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I can assure you that this is the best eggless/vegan blueberry muffins one can bake.
It's as light as an angel food cake made with only egg whites. You can imagine how light that cake would be.
So these eggless blueberry muffins which use vinegar as an egg substitute are also equally light and airy.
I used apple cider vinegar this time and got no aftertaste or smell from the vinegar. I personally feel that white vinegar has an aftertaste and smell.
I have made this vegan blueberry recipe a couple of times with many variations in using different flavors and ingredients, yet the recipe yields perfect muffins every time. I have used lemon zest, orange zest, orange juice, rice milk, and almond milk for flavorings and the liquid portion. I prefer these eggless blueberry muffins with orange flavoring the most.
I have always loved the combination of blueberry and orange. This orange blueberry bread is another best example of how lovely this combination is.
In my early days of venturing into vegan baking, I have used soy milk as a vegan substitute for dairy milk and have always felt that soy milk tends to give a rubbery texture to the baked treat. I don't know if it's just me or if others have felt it too.
That's the reason I have stopped using soy milk and these days mainly use rice milk and almond milk. Bot these non-dairy kinds of milk don't affect the texture.
I have another version of these muffins which uses whole wheat pastry flour, flax meal, maple syrup - healthy vegan blueberry muffins.
How to make vegan blueberry muffins?
Here is the step-by-step pictorial recipe on how to make fluffy vegan blueberry muffins from scratch:
Top Tip
This vegan blueberry muffin recipe is one of the most tried recipes from the blog and I get a lot of questions asking for substitutions and many other things. I have tried to answer it all either individually or consolidating similar questions and created one below.
So please take some time to go through all the questions and answers before trying the recipe or before repeating the same question in the comments section. Thank you.
If you tried this Vegan Blueberry Muffins recipe, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
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Recipe
Vegan Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour (I used bleached)
- 1 and ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Lemon/orange Zest
- ¾ to 1 cup Sugar
- 1 cup any non-dairy milk
- ⅓ cup any oil with neutral flavor
- 1 teaspoon vanilla/lemon/orange extract (optional)
- 1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 and ½ cups Fresh OR Frozen Blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F/200C (see My Notes) for 15 minutes. Lightly grease a muffin tin.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and orange zest.
- Combine the sugar, milk, oil, extract, and vinegar in a large bowl. Mix well.
- Add the dry and wet ingredients to stir until just combined. Don't over-stir.
- Gently fold in the berries using a rubber spatula.
- Fill the muffin tins about ⅔rds full.
- Bake at 400F for about 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 375F and bake for another 7-8 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let it cool for 5 minutes. After that remove the muffins from the tins and cool on a wire rack.
Taste & Texture
Nutrition
Recipe FAQs
I know that it's easy to get tempted to replace the oil/fat in a baking recipe with applesauce to make it fat-free, but that would result in dense and dry muffins. It won’t be as airy as using oil alone. So I would suggest just replacing half the quantity of oil with applesauce.
Since the acidic content of lemon juice is less when compared to vinegar you might have to double the quantity of vinegar. For example, if a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of vinegar, use 2 teaspoons of lemon juice.
Lemon zest is nothing but grating the skin of the lemon. Care should be taken so that the inner white sheet from the skin does not peel away because it will be bitter. Lemon extract is like vanilla, and almond extract is in liquid form.
I wouldn't say that it's compulsory, but it will give these blueberry muffins a nice flavor without baking powder. You may choose to use orange zest/extract instead of simply vanilla extract will be good too.
Opening the oven door quite too often while it is baking makes cold air enter the oven and might be the reason for the muffins to sink. Another reason is that you used too much batter for each muffin.
No it doesn’t work like that. You would have to use Xanathan gum. I haven't baked this recipe gluten-free and have read that simply substituting the all-purpose flour with gluten-free flour would not work especially in baked goods that have to rise, like muffins, cupcakes, and cakes. Brownies and cookies should not be that much of a problem to bake gluten-free and can be done without xanthan gum.
Gluten-free and egg free is a lot of trial and error methods only. But some of the readers did mention that they tried this recipe gluten-free using rice flour and gluten-free mix (which already has the xantham gum in it). You may try it at your discretion. I will try to bake a gluten-free version shortly and blog about it soon.
Certainly you can. Just use dairy milk and if you prefer butter, melted butter instead of oil. One of the readers suggested that the muffins turn out better if oil is used instead of melted butter though.
Any oil that has a neutral flavor. Peanut oil, sunflower oil, (refined) coconut oil, avocado oil, etc could work on this homemade vegan blueberry muffins recipe.
You can try it at 350F but bake it a few minutes longer.
Halving the recipe may not work out always. It's again for you to experiment and see. Another option is to bake all the muffins and freeze the remaining and use it later. If you decide to halve the recipe and use a 12-cup pan, then you will have to fill the rest of the cups with little water so that the muffins will bake evenly and doesn’t get dried out.
You can try a flaxseed meal, but I’m pretty sure the muffins won’t be as airy and light as those with lemon and vinegar. You can blend a teaspoon of flaxseed meal with 3 tablespoons of warm water.
There are a couple of reasons for this:
1) If you try to peel off the wrapper while the muffins are still warm
2) If you make it low-fat or fat-free
3) If you don't lightly grease the liners with non-stick cooking spray.
The temperature does not change, but you need to bake it for a shorter time than you would bake regular-sized muffins. Somewhere between 12-15 minutes.
I have explained it in detail here: Why does fruit sink to bottom of the cake?
Rice milk is derived from cooked white/brown rice. You can use any other non-dairy milk like almond milk, oat milk, hemp milk, etc. I personally don't prefer using soy milk because it gives a sticky texture to the baked goods. For vegan baking, my choice is either rice milk or almond milk.
Yes you can use any other berries or fruits of your choice. Or even add-ons like nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruits, etc.
Josh says
Hi Madhuram
I want to thank you, as does my 2 yr old who loves the muffins we just made. My daughter is allergic to wheat, eggs, and dairy so this was a wonderful find as well as a lot of fun in the kitchen for the two of us.
I used fresh blueberries and they turned out just fine. I look forward to doing strawberries next week.
Madhuram says
You're welcome Josh. Thanks for taking the time to record your feedback here.
Rachel says
What kind of gluten-free flours did you use?
Madhuram says
I haven't made these gluten free.
Rachel says
Ah - I meant to reply to Josh, because he said
his daughter couldn't eat wheat.
Josh says
Rachel
We use Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour for all of our baking. You can find it at any whole food store. Also if your local grocer has a GF section it will be there as well.
Vernon says
All Purpose Flour 2 Cup
Cocoa powder 1/3 Cup
Oatmeal 1 Cup
Baking Soda 1 and 1/2 teaspoons
Salt 1/2 teaspoon
Sugar 1 Cup
Water 2 Cups
Canola Oil 1/3 cup
Apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon
Esther says
Hi Madhu,
I just made these muffins. I used the version with a little less
oil and with apple sauce. I used spelt flour because I don't use
wheat flour. I used a mixture of cane sugar, sucanat and splenda.
I added a little vanilla essence as well.
They were still warm when I tasted them, but they tasted really
good!
Hope they taste as good when they are cooled down.
Thanks for the recipe! I think it's a keeper.
Esther
The Netherlands
Madhuram says
You're welcome Esther. I too have to try it with some applesauce.
Anuradha says
Hi Madhu,
Thank you very much for this wonderful recipe. I substituted with 1 cup of All purpose flour with whole wheat flour and the muffins are very soft and good. My daughter and my husband likes it very
much.
Brittney says
Can I use coconut milk instead of rice or soy?
Or will that change the consistency too much?
Madhuram says
Hmm..I haven't tried baking with coconut milk so far. If you think that the milk has a very thick consistency maybe you could try a combination of coconut milk and water in 75:25 ratio.
Jamie Coombs says
Thanks so much for the recipe! I made these for my son (10 months)
and substituted formula for milk and used bananas. They turned
out perfect and most of all my baby loved them:) Thanks again!
Madhuram says
Wow! You're welcome Jamie.
Beena says
I am a novice in baking, so trying out simple recipes..
But this sadly did not turn out well for me. Probably my lack of experience 🙂
My mixture looked a bit too thick in consistency than other cake batters
I have made. I did not have a muffin tray, so baked in a cake tin @180C
for around 40 mins since the inside was not getting baked.
The cake turned out very heavy, hard crust, quite dry and not at all
spongy. The lemon zest did not quite flavour it sufficiently. So cake
had an eggy or doughy flavour. Maybe does need some essence or stronger extract.
I am sure I made many beginner mistakes.. Please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
Madhuram says
Beena, I'm sorry that you didn't get desirable results with this recipe which is quite unlikely because its such a fail-proof recipe. The temperature and baking time seems about just right for baking in a cake tin (I'm assuming you used an 8 inch round pan). I'm guessing you would have overmixed the dough and that would have resulted in a heavy cake. For quick breads/muffins/cake the dough should be just stirred to combine all the ingredients.
Elsa J Lucas says
Thank you so much for this recipe for blueberry muffins! My grandson is allergic to milk and eggs. It is a life saver for dinner on Christmas.
Madhuram says
You're welcome Elsa. I'm glad that your grandson will be able to enjoy his Christmas dinner.
Vanitha says
I am baking these cupcakes at the moment and keeping my fingers crossed that they come out alright. I do have a question in regards to the mixture after the flour is added in. It became a little lumpy.Should I have added a little of the flour mixture at a time instead of dumping the enture thing in?
Madhuram says
Muffins/quick bread batters tend to lump and it is perfectly fine and that's the way it should be. Resist your urge to beat it smooth or overmixing to dissolve the lumps. This would result in a hard muffin.
Kalyani says
Thanks much for this AWESOMe recipe.. I also add 1 cup of
apple sauce + yogurt to this recipe and the muffins are crispier
and very tasty.. 🙂
Debbie says
😛
These came out delicious!
I used 1/2 c. whole wheat flour and 1/2 c. cornmeal. I also used just 1/2 c. turbinado sugar, and I think I can use even less sugar next time because it is plenty sweet for me.
I cannot believe they are vegan. I made blueberry corn muffins last week WITH eggs and they came out SO dry. I used this because I am out of eggs and I like it so much better! Excellent.
Thanks for trying out the recipe Debbie. Its definitely a foolproof muffin recipe.
Cynthia says
Wonderful recipe! My son is allergic to milk and eggs. I substituted milk with Very Vanilla soy milk and only used 3/4 C of sugar. They were moist, light and fluffy; everything you could want in a muffin.
Thanks Cynthia. You should definitely try some other recipes too from the Joy of Vegan Baking. They really turn out good. I have tried the following from there:
http://www.egglesscooking.com/2009/01/23/best-chocolate-chip-cookies/
http://www.egglesscooking.com/2009/02/26/vegan-strawberry-cupcakes/
http://www.egglesscooking.com/2008/11/05/vegan-brownie-cupcakes/
Nicole Pualani says
Yummy to my tummy. I substituted coconut oil for canola, turbinado for white sugar and also used one cup of whole wheat pastry flour for one of the flour cups. I didn't have a muffin pan handy so I used a small round cake pan. The baking time was about 35 minutes. It turned out so delicious. It tasted like pancakes, actually, and my daughter and I drizzled a little maple syrup over the steamy hot slices. MMMMMM 😀
Nicole, it definitely sounds very yummy. Thanks for trying the recipe.
Kristi says
My son is allergic to eggs, so I do all my baking without eggs, and this is far and away the best of any muffin recipe - blueberry or other - that I've tried...and my other son (who is not allergic to eggs) gobble these up every time I make them.
Yes Kristi, that muffin recipe is a keeper. Thanks for trying it. You should try the strawberry cupcakes too in the Eggless Cakes section. It is similar to this one.