Adapted from this blueberry muffins recipe, this blueberry muffin bread is soft, moist, and loaded with blueberries. Since there’s no individual muffins, this muffin batter goes from the mixing bowl to the oven in minutes. Though this quick bread is outstanding on its own, a swirl of blueberry jam and sprinkle of crumble topping create an outstanding crust.
I’m always on the lookout for quick and easy recipes that double as breakfast and snack. Banana bread, morning glory muffins, and zucchini bread are my usual defaults, but in an effort to break out of routine, blueberry muffin bread is now in the line-up.
What is Blueberry Muffin Bread?
Glad you asked. Blueberry muffin bread is exactly what it sounds like… blueberry muffins baked as bread. This is a quick bread recipe, so there’s no yeast required. Blueberry muffin bread is soft, moist, and completely overloaded with blueberries. Enjoy it warm from the oven or straight out of the refrigerator. It also freezes beautifully!
Blueberry Muffins in a Loaf Pan
Any muffin recipe yielding around 12 standard size muffins doubles as a quick bread recipe. Today we’re using my blueberry muffins, which is actually my master muffin recipe. This particular muffin batter creates 1,000s of muffin varieties including cranberry orange muffins, peach muffins, and apple cinnamon muffins. For the muffin bread, I added a little more flour to ensure this was a nice big loaf.
Now we can create plenty of quick bread recipes too! For example, swap blueberries for chocolate chips and you have an easy chocolate chip quick bread.
Blueberry Muffin Bread Ingredients
Like pound cake and biscuits, blueberry muffin bread is another example of how extremely basic ingredients easily transform into an absolutely delicious recipe.
- Butter: Butter is the base and produces a soft cakey crumb. If desired, swap with solid coconut oil.
- Sugar: Use a mix of granulated and brown sugar for flavor. A dry unrefined sugar, such as coconut sugar, works too. I don’t recommend a liquid sweetener.
- Eggs: 2 eggs work their magic providing structure and overall richness.
- Sour Cream or Yogurt: Plain low fat or full fat sour cream or yogurt add exceptional moisture, as well as the necessary acid for the baking soda.
- Vanilla & Salt: Flavor flavor flavor.
- Flour: All-purpose flour is the workhorse of quick breads like apple cinnamon bread and zucchini bread. I don’t typically bake with gluten free flours, but let me know if you try any that work.
- Leaveners: Both baking soda and baking powder add necessary lift. Remember the differences in baking powder vs baking soda and why we use both in some recipes?
- Milk: The blueberry muffin bread would be flat and heavy without milk.
2 Optional Extras!
The blueberry muffin bread is completely awesome on its own. But if you want to take things up a notch, add one or both:
- Blueberry Jam: Swirl 2 Tablespoons of blueberry jam into the batter.
- Crumble Topping: Simply combine all-purpose flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter. Sprinkle on top before baking.
The pictured bread includes both. See my recipe notes for detailed instructions.
Enjoying your slices with a swipe of homemade honey butter is fantastic here, too!
Blueberry Muffin Bread
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 60 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 1 loaf
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Adapted from my favorite Blueberry Muffins, this blueberry muffin bread is soft, moist, and loaded with blueberries. Since there’s no individual muffins, this muffin batter goes from the mixing bowl to the oven in minutes. Though this quick bread is outstanding on its own, a swirl of blueberry jam and sprinkle of crumble topping create an outstanding crust.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (50g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (120g) sour cream, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup (80ml) milk, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 cups (210g) fresh blueberries*
- optional: 2 Tablespoons blueberry jam and/or crumb topping (see recipe note)
Instructions
- Adjust the oven rack to the lower third position and preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan or coat with nonstick spray. Set aside.
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl.
- Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. On medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the sour cream and vanilla extract on medium speed until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, add the dry ingredients and milk into the wet ingredients and beat until no flour pockets remain. Fold in the blueberries.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared baking pan. See note if adding streusel or blueberry jam swirl. Bake for 60-65 minutes, loosely covering the bread with aluminum foil at the 30 minute mark to help prevent the top and sides from getting too brown. A toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf will come out clean when the bread is done. Remove from the oven and allow the bread to cool completely in the pan set on a wire rack.
- Cover and store bread at room temperature for 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Cool baked muffin bread completely. Tightly wrap the loaf or slices (individually or grouped) in 2 layers of plastic wrap or aluminum foil. Place wrapped bread in a large freezer-friendly storage bag or reusable container. Freeze for up to 3-4 months. Thaw wrapped or unwrapped in the refrigerator or at room temperature.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | 9×5-inch Loaf Pan | Cooling Rack
- Sour Cream: Plain yogurt is a great substitute for sour cream. Unsweetened applesauce or mashed banana may also be used.
- Blueberries: Fresh blueberries are best. I do not suggest frozen blueberries. If you need to use them, do not thaw, add another 2 Tablespoons of flour to the dry ingredients, and extend the bake time.
- Why is everything at room temperature? All refrigerated items should be at room temperature so the batter mixes together easily and evenly. See my post on the importance of room temperature ingredients for more information.
- Blueberry Jam or Crumble Topping: If desired, swirl 2 Tablespoons blueberry jam (or any flavor) into the top of the loaf before baking. A crumble topping adds a lovely crunch. Simply combine 1/4 cup (31g) all-purpose flour, 2 Tablespoons brown sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, then using a fork, mix in 2 Tablespoons melted unsalted butter until crumbles form. Sprinkle over loaf before baking.
- Adapted from Blueberry Muffins with a *little* extra flour and milk to produce a nice large loaf.
This is my favorite recipe! I have probably made this bread 20+ times. I do reduce and mix-up the sugar, using 1/4 a cup of maple syrup and 1/4 a cup of brown sugar. I also use GF AP flour. Delicious and reliable every time. Thank you for this recipe!
Just baked this, delicious! Wondering if the batter can be made in advance? And if I eat to add some lemon zest and lemon juice, will that throw off the moisture content?
Hi Nancy, we don’t recommend making the batter in advance. The leaveners are activated once the wet and dry ingredients are mixed, so it’s best to bake the batter shortly thereafter. You could certainly add some lemon zest to this batter, or even try replacing some (not all) of the milk with some lemon juice. Let us know what you try!
I made this today and it is absolutely excellent! Substituted yogurt for sour cream, swirled jam on top and then sprinkled muscovado sugar over that to form a crust. Really great recipe!
I made this today and it definitely did not disappoint!
I made it today and it was lovely!
Delicious. I didn’t have any sour cream so used ricotta instead. Otherwise followed the recipe (didn’t add the optional toppings). Mixed the blueberries in some flour first so they’d distribute evenly in the loaf. Moist, sweet, delicious.
Could you substitute with whole wheat flour? Any modifications if you do? Thanks for all your great recipes Sally!!
Hi George, You can use whole wheat flour instead, but the bread will be denser and quite heavy — the taste will also be slightly different. Let us know what you try!
Hi Michelle- Thanks for your response. I ended up using 1/3 APF (that’s what I had left) and 2/3 Whole wheat pastry flour. Bread was excellent; moist, flavorful and delicious. I also added 1tsp(heaping) of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp (heaping) ground ginger and fresh grated nutmeg to dry ingredients and 1/2 cup of flaked toasted coconut (unsweetened) as a mix-in. It sliced better the next day after fridge. Toasted in toaster oven next am. Perfect!
I assume whole wheat pastry flour is a bit lighter than regular whole wheat flour? I may experiment with that next time.
I stumbled across this recipe and have found it to be the most versitile of recipes. I have no problem improvising or experimenting. To wit: I’ve substitued plain yogurt and Ricotta in lieu of sour cream. I’ve also made it as fruit/vegetable bread (zucchini/banana. Substituted raspberries, blackberries, peaches, strawberries. Since I have approx 30+ folks I bake for at the office, I’ve also made muffins (both large and small), simply by reducing the baking time. 18-20 for small, 25-27 large.
The baking time varies based on the water content of my ingredients (zucchini & peaches requiring a tad more time.
I absolutely love this recipe! I’ve made it for brunch many times. My son loves blueberries and wants a blueberry birthday cake. Can this be baked in a rectangular cake pan?
Hi Bethany, that should work just fine! Here’s everything you need to know about cake pan sizes and conversions. Or, you could use our white cake recipe instead and add blueberries to that batter. See recipe Notes there for baking in a 9×13-inch pan.
I usually love all of your recipes, but this one didn’t turn out right somehow. I retraced my ingredients and steps and I don’t know why, but the bread came out dry and bland … maybe the cook time was too long? Anyways I’ll still try other recipes on this site, but this one didn’t work out well for me.
I had a ton of blueberries from Costco and I didn’t want to freeze them (they sometimes get lost forever). I searched for Muffins made with sour cream and came across yours, then I saw your loaf recipe. It was one of the best I’ve ever made. I think I baked it a little too long, the bottom got overly brown but it was still moist and delicious.