Mulberry Maple Mini Muffins

This adorable mulberry muffin recipe is a cute, delicious way to use two of my favorite tree ingredients– mulberries and maple syrup– to make clean, real-food mini muffins with all the charm of bagged ones. (If you grew up in the 90s, you know what I mean.) The only sweetener here is maple syrup (and some optional maple sugar, for sprinkling on top), which is a nice counterpoint to the jammy mulberries in this hearty muffin batter.

I always use regeneratively grown Turkey Red wheat flour when I make this recipe at home, so the muffins have an almost oat-y, complex depth– but you can use any flour you’ve got and they’ll turn out delicious. You could even try oat flour or gluten-free flour in a direct one-to-one substitution.

This recipe, moreover, is meant to be riffed on, so use what you have– non-dairy milk, flax eggs, melted butter instead of oil, brown sugar instead of maple sugar. However you want to modify, this recipe can tolerate it, because the star, ultimately, is the melange of mulberries and maple (always a winning flavor combination, especially when you have fresh mulberries). 

Bookmark this list for easy use each mulberry season!

I love baking with mulberries, and these mulberry maple muffins are a great way to use a surplus crop of mulberries without making even more jam. You can use this recipe to make a dozen normal size muffins OR about 4-dozen mini muffins, depending on your pan size. Either way, they are now a staple in our house. 

Enjoy! 

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Mulberry Maple Muffin Recipe

This recipe makes 1-dozen regular muffins OR about 4-dozen mini muffins, depending on your pan size.

 

Mulberry Muffin Recipe – Ingredients 

• 1 and 3/4 cups AP or wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup oil (melted coconut oil, avocado oil, or olive oil all work fine)
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 2 eggs, room temp 
• 1 cup plain greek yogurt OR 2/3 cup milk (use what you have)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup mulberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 tablespoon maple sugar (optional, for sprinkling on top)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease or paper a 12-muffin tin.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another mixing bowl, combine the oil, maple syrup, eggs, yogurt/or milk, and vanilla extract, and stir to thoroughly combine.
3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined. Try not to over-mix. Then, fold in the mulberries and divide batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups or about 4-dozen mini muffin cups. Finally, sprinkle the top of each muffin with maple sugar (if desired). Bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean, about 16 to 20 minutes for regular muffins or 13-15 mins for mini muffins. 

Notes/FAQ

• If using milk instead of yogurt, drop 2 teaspoons vinegar into the milk and let it sit for 15 mins before incorporating into the recipe. This will make a buttermilk that will add to the leavening help that you would otherwise get from the yogurt.
• To make a flax egg, mix 1 tablespoon ground flax seed meal with 3 tablespoons water and use that as a substitute for 1 egg. (e.g. You need to 2x that for this recipe.) 

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Related: Some of our other favorite tree-based recipes are Redbud Flower Muffins, Magnolia Spice Cake, Chestnut Hummus, Maple-Date Chestnut Milk, and Redbud Lemonade. Try them out!