These blackberry lemon poppy seed muffins are bursting with juicy fresh blackberries, bright lemon zest, and crunchy poppy seeds in every bite. They’re soft, fluffy, and wonderfully moist thanks to Greek yogurt (or sour cream), while a drizzle of tangy lemon blackberry icing adds the perfect finishing touch. If you love bakery-style muffins with tall domed tops, this easy recipe delivers every time.
I originally published this recipe in 2016 and have since updated it with new photos and additional success tips.
Built from my trusted ultimate muffin recipe—the same one behind my favorite blueberry muffins—these blackberry muffins have a tender crumb, plenty of fresh lemon flavor, and just the right balance of sweet and tart.
If you’re already a fan of lemon poppy seed baked goods, these muffins take that classic flavor combination one delicious step further! Plus, who doesn’t love a lovely light purple-hued icing?
Here’s Why You’ll Love These Blackberry Lemon Muffins
- Soft and fluffy with tall muffin tops
- Filled with fresh, bright lemon flavor
- Made with simple pantry staples
- Finished with an easy lemon blackberry icing
- Easy to freeze
- Like my favorite lemon poppy seed muffins, with a burst of berry flavor!
Key Ingredients You Need & Why
These blackberry lemon poppy seed muffins are a variation of my ultimate muffin recipe, which we also use as the base for my favorite blueberry muffins and apple cinnamon muffins. We’ll use pretty much the same ingredients for today’s batter!
- Flour: Stick with all-purpose flour. The flour gives the muffins structure and keeps the batter nice and thick so the blackberries don’t sink to the bottom.
- Poppy Seeds: Can’t have poppy seed muffins without them! Same goes for lemon poppy seed bread and almond poppy seed tea cakes.
- Butter: We’re creaming the butter to make today’s muffins, so make sure to use proper room-temperature butter here. If you’re a beginner baker or if you need a refresher, I also have a helpful video tutorial on how to cream butter and sugar.
- Sugar & Brown Sugar: Granulated sugar sweetens the muffins, balancing out the tart lemon. Brown sugar adds depth of flavor, plus extra moisture.
- Sour Cream or Greek Yogurt: Either creates an exceptionally moist muffin with a soft crumb.
- Lemon: Use both fresh lemon zest and lemon juice for the brightest flavor.
- Blackberries: Fresh blackberries are best, but frozen blackberries work, too. If using frozen, do not thaw before using. If your fresh blackberries are particularly large, cut them in half before adding them to the batter.
You’ll also need a few baking staples including baking powder, baking soda, eggs, salt, vanilla, and milk.
Making muffins is pretty straightforward. Whisk together the dry ingredients in one bowl, then cream the butter and sugars together with an electric mixer. Beat in the remaining wet ingredients, then add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Be careful not to overmix the batter.
Finally, fold in the blackberries very gently.
Success Tip: If your berries are particularly juicy, they may start to tint the batter a purplish-gray hue.
- To prevent that, you can wait to add the berries until you’re filling the muffin cups. Spoon some batter into each muffin cup, filling it about halfway. Add a few blackberries, top with more batter, then gently swirl with a knife.
- Press a few more blackberries into the tops before baking.
How to Bake Blackberry Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Tall Muffin Tops
For tall bakery-style domed muffin tops, there are 3 directions to follow closely:
- Make sure your muffin batter is THICK. (This one is!)
- Fill your muffin tins/liners all the way to the top.
- Bake the muffins for 5 minutes at a high temperature, and then lower the temperature while keeping the oven door closed. This initial high oven temperature quickly lifts up the muffin top. Once the temperature is reduced, the centers of the muffins bake. I recommend this in nearly all of my muffin recipes.
Lemon Blackberry Icing
For a little something extra, I like to top each muffin with a drizzle of icing. The icing adds another layer of bright citrus flavor and lightly coats each muffin without making them overly sweet.
You only need 4 ingredients: confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, blackberry jam, and milk. Whisk everything together until smooth. Instead of blackberry jam, you can use a few fresh blackberries. Mash them with a fork before whisking into the icing.
These blackberry lemon poppy seed muffins are so delightfully summery. The sweet-tart blackberries pair beautifully with lemon and add so much texture to every bite. I know you’ll love them!
Blackberry Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 22 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 14 muffins
- Category: Muffins
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These blackberry lemon poppy seed muffins are bursting with juicy fresh blackberries and bright lemon flavor. Greek yogurt or sour cream keeps them extra moist, while creamed butter creates a wonderfully soft texture. Drizzle each with sweet-tart lemon blackberry icing for the perfect finishing touch. See recipe Note below if your blackberries are extra juicy.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons poppy seeds
- 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
- 1/2 cup (120g) sour cream or plain yogurt, at room temperature
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons fresh lemon zest
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup (60ml) milk (any kind), at room temperature
- 2 and 1/2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 and 1/2 cups (250g) fresh or frozen blackberries (see Note)
Lemon Blackberry Icing
- 1 cup (120g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
- 1 Tablespoon (15ml) lemon juice
- 1 Tablespoon (15ml) milk (any kind)
- 2 teaspoons blackberry jam, or 3–4 fresh blackberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C). Spray a 12-count muffin pan with nonstick spray or line with cupcake liners. You may need a 2nd pan as this recipe makes up to 14 muffins, though you can always bake in batches using 1 pan. Set aside.
- Make the muffins: In a large bowl, whisk the flour, poppy seeds, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside.
- Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together on medium-high speed until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. (Here’s a helpful tutorial if you need guidance on how to cream butter and sugar.) Add the sour cream, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla extract, and beat on medium speed until combined. The mixture will look curdled; that’s OK.
- Add in the dry ingredients and beat on low speed until almost combined. Add the milk and lemon juice and beat on low speed until combined. The batter is thick. Fold in the blackberries. (See Note if your blackberries are extra juicy.)
- Spoon the batter into liners, filling them all the way to the top.
- Bake the muffins for 5 minutes at 425°F (218°C), then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C). Bake for an additional 16–18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The total time these muffins take in the oven is about 21–23 minutes. Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the muffin pan, then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling.
- Make the icing: Whisk the confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, and milk together. Whisk in the blackberry jam until smooth. If using fresh blackberries, mash them with a fork and then whisk into the icing. If desired, add 2–3 more Tablespoons of sifted confectioners’ sugar to thicken the icing. Drizzle over the warm or cooled muffins.
- Muffins stay fresh covered at room temperature for a few days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Freeze baked and cooled muffins for up to 3 months. It’s best to freeze the muffins without the icing and add the icing after thawing and before serving. (Freezing them with the icing on is completely fine, but the muffins taste better with fresh icing.) Thaw muffins in the refrigerator or at room temperature before icing/serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 12-count Muffin Pan | Muffin Liners | Citrus Zester | Citrus Juicer | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Cooling Rack
- Sour Cream: Sour cream adds so much moisture. Plain yogurt is a great substitute. I recommend plain Greek yogurt, any fat content.
- Milk: You can use any milk, dairy or nondairy. I recommend avoiding nonfat milk, however.
- Blackberries: If using frozen blackberries, do not thaw them. If your blackberries are extra large, cut them in half. If your berries are particularly juicy, they may tint the batter a purplish-gray hue. To prevent that, wait to add the berries until you’re filling the muffin cups. Spoon some batter into each muffin cup, filling it about halfway. Add a few blackberries, top with more batter, then gently swirl with a knife. Press a few more blackberries into the tops before baking.
- Why is everything at room temperature? All refrigerated items should be at room temperature so the batter mixes together easily and evenly.
- Note on Flour: This recipe is based off of my ultimate muffins recipe. Today’s blackberry version uses slightly more flour to balance out the extra liquid from lemon juice and large blackberries.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Would it be possible to not add the blackberries so the muffins could only be poppyseed or would that mess with the consistency of the batter?
Hi Hadley, you can do that or use the batter from this lemon poppy seed bread instead. The recipe notes there include directions for making as muffins. Enjoy!
These were absolutely fabulous, even using frozen berries! I realized just before I put them in that my poppy seeds had gone bad so sadly had to skip those- I’m sure they’ll be even better next time when I can include them. The batter did seem extremely thick when I was filling the muffin cups but once baked they were super light and fluffy and the blueberries stayed well dispersed- so impressed by that 🙂
Are the pictures on this from using a larger six muffin pan? Or are they just regular sized in a six count pan? Just wondering because yours are beautiful and I’d like the same effect but imagine the smaller ones may look different than what’s pictured
Hi Katey, the muffins pictured are standard sized (not jumbo). You can use a standard 12-count pan (the pan pictured was a smaller 6-count pan, but still standard size). Hope this helps!
Another tasty recipe!! Thought I’d made a mistake when I added the eggs, vanilla, and yogurt to the creamed butter only to have it appear like a liquid with butter speckles in it. However, I pressed on and this made a very tasty batch of muffins!
The tops are crisp and risen, the inside is mild and delicious (almost perfect enough that you could do without the glaze, but it’s a simple addition anyway), and they made my house smell wonderful!
You could probably make a spare muffin or two with the amount of batter this makes.
SO YUMMY!! I even made them gluten and dairy free and vegan! Excellent!
Lovely, soft muffins. I made mini muffins with dairy-free ingredients (coconut cream w/ lemon juice in place of yogurt) and baked at 350 for about 13-14 minutes as Sally’s mentioned in reply to other comments. They turned out well once I stopped over-filling the muffin tins 🙂 Unfortunately they ended up being a little light on the lemon flavor, which was sad, but they still taste good.
Hi Sally,
Can I ask why every time I made this muffin recipe, most of the blackberries sank to the bottom of the muffins? Is that because I used jumpo muffin pans? Thank you!
Hi Elizabeth! Berries sink when the batter isn’t thick enough to support them – using jumbo pans can affect the outcome as well. You try try coating the berries in just a bit of flour before incorporating them.
My family love these muffins. I was impressed with the beautiful crowns they have. They are light and airy. We waited the 10 minutes, wished we would have waited longer. We think they would of been stiffer. We had to use forks on some of them. We did use lemon jam instead of lemon juice. Also blueberries instead of blackberries. Amazing. Thanks for the recipes.
I’ve just made 30 of these using homegrown blackberries. They smell delicious-they’re for a birthday celebration tomorrow many thanks for the recipe
I’ve never had a miss with your recipes before but this one left me underwhelmed. They tasted good but the butter soaked the bottom of the muffins in the tin and made a greasy mess. I’ll probably look for a more traditional oil based muffin recipe and add the flavoring to that next time. (I didn’t use the berries b/c he didn’t want them and it only made 10 muffins. I was okay with that given my change. That wasn’t my issue with the recipe, just an FYI!)
Can I double or triple this recipe without making any other adjustments?
Hi JJ, for best results (and to prevent over or under mixing), we recommend making separate batches rather than doubling or tripling.
Thank you for the advice. I will make separate batches. I’m making muffins for a brunch birthday party for my grandson’s first. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Omg – so thank you to the person below who commented and to you for posting the elevation tips! I moved to CO and have thrown away so many trial and error recipes and decided to try this one with the edits and with my new oven and boom, they came out so good. I will post what I changed based on MY elevation per king arthurs website –
MILK – 1/4th cup plus 2 tablespoons plus 3 teaspoons – add 1 tbsp of butter to make “sweet milk”
Flour – 1 and 3/4THS cups plus 2 extra tablespoons
Use only Baking Powder, 1 teaspoon. No sour cream or yogurt.
5 mins at 450, decrease to 335 for the remaining 13 minutes.
They were’t the moistest things I’ve ever made but we will get there eventually! Thank you!
Lovely, Delicious, High Muffins w/No sinking middles at 8000’!
THX for your High Alt., changes. What is your elevation?
Made Half a recipe w/an extra Egg yolk bc I had one & left out 1 1/2 T Milk to compensate. Added 3>4 T Candied Lemon peel to batter for more flavor.. Baked in muff cups 450* 6 min; 375* 8 min; 350* ~5 min in convec/micro oven.
Turned out awesome. I usually hate making muffins because it happens all the time where I follow the recipe and they still turn out too dry or barely sweet. The only changes I made was omitting the lemon juice, and rubbing the zest into the sugar before mixing (a trick learned long ago). The batter doesn’t need anymore lemon flavour beyond that. I also mixed the yogurt and milk together, and I folded in the dry ingredients a little at a time. Batter turned out perfect.
Can I use sour crem instead of yogurt
Hi Leah, sure can!
These sound delicious, I cannot wait to try them. Do you think this recipe could be baked in a loaf pan?
Yes! Any muffin recipe yielding around 12 standard size muffins doubles as a quick bread recipe. You can use this batter and follow the baking instructions for our Blueberry Muffin Bread.
When I made these muffins, the tops didnt rise into a dome at all and simply went out. Also, the blackberries sank to the bottom and soaked in the bottom of the muffins. I dont know if this is a high altitude thing or if i just did something wrong.
Hi Mocat, I wish we could help, but have no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html
See my post above for high altitude if you haven’t tried it already!
Have never had this happen before but on step 3 when I put mixer at high speed as directed my mixture completely separated and turned to liquid. What went wrong?
Hi Susan, were all of your ingredients room temperature? When ingredients are varying temperatures, it can sometimes cause batter to split.
Could I make the batter to step 4 and then freeze it in cooked/portioned? Then thaw and bake it later? Thanks!
Hi Emily, unfortunately, batter isn’t the best to freeze as the leavening agents are activated once mixed with the wet ingredients. You can freeze the baked muffins for up to three months. Allow to thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then bring to room temperature or warm up in the microwave if desired.
Hi! Can I use 1/2 cup of honey instead of 3/4 cup sugar in the muffins without making any other changes? Thanks!
Hi Dana, We haven’t tried the recipe this way, but it should work! Let us know how it goes.
Do you think these would work if I left out the blackberries without making any other changes?
Yes, definitely!
Hi Irena,
I didn’t see your comment fast enough. I made them with the cake flour. They turned out very flat. I followed the recipe very closely.
Can I make these muffins with cake flour?
Hi Nadia, We fear cake flour would be much too light for these muffins. They would likely be flimsy and you’d have a hard time taking them out of the wrapper. Best to stick with all-purpose flour here!
Do you have any tips for creaming the butter without any mixer? Can I do it with a whisk or baking spatula?
Hi Sally. Very excited to start my muffin journey with the help of your clever base recipe plus add-ins approach. Have tried these lemon and poppy seed beauties. They taste great however after forming perfect domes during baking they partly deflated afterwards and formed funny peaks. Followed the recipe to the T. Set oven to bottom heating only and without the fan. Is that correct? Would appreciate any other suggestions before I tackle the apple walnut muffins. Many thanks.
Hi Irena, If they are deflating after you take them out of the oven then it’s likely that they are simply a bit underbaked. Next time, leaving them in the oven for even an extra minute should help. We use conventional heat (not fan forced) and the heating elements are on the top and bottom. If you have the ability to use top and bottom heat that should help also!
I have. Question: why did my muffins turn out dry? I baked them at 425 for 5 min and 15 min at 350 with a crumb on toothpick I followed recipe
Hi Donna, how are you measuring your flour? Be sure to spoon and level (or weight measure) your flour to ensure you’re not adding too much flour to the dough. Too much flour can lead to dry muffins. Hope this helps!
I made a HUGE mistake!! I poured the batter in a 6 count muffin pan (that’s all I have) and the remaining into a small bundt pan. The muffins in the muffin pan turned out tall and PERFECT. However, the batter in the small bundt pan overflowed and made a mess…..still tasty and edible.
Hi Sally! I love all your recipes and can’t wait to try these. I am having a bridal shower brunch and I want to make mini muffins instead of regular size muffins. Do you happen to have the adjusted bake time? Thank you!
Hi Melissa, For mini muffins, the blackberries are pretty large, so we would cut them so they are a nice size for mini muffins. Bake at 350°F (177°C) the whole time for about 11-13 minutes, give or take.
Super delicious, great recipe! These muffins were light and fluffy and just the right combination of sweet and tart. I love that you use non-dairy milk alternatives. I used oat milk for mine and they turned out great. Thank you, Sally!
I just made these so delicious! Note: I didn’t have yogurt so substituted 4oz cream cheese ( room temp) and no poppy seeds. They were so yummy. I can’t wait to try them with all the ingredients. Thank you
These are the most delicious lemon muffins ever! Every flavor is in perfect balance. Super moist. And the blackberries add a wonderful touch.
These are seriously some of the best muffins I have made in a long time. Light, moist and a nice mix of sweet and tart. Thanks for this recipe. Just FYI, I used sour cream instead of yogurt. I just took some out of the freezer and they held up so well.