With hints of honey & lavender, these robust and sweet Earl Grey muffins will take your tastebuds on a decadent journey of aromas and sweetness!
Recently, I’ve been looking for the perfect Earl Grey Muffin recipe. I scoured through different Earl Grey muffin recipes, but couldn’t find one that had the right oomph of Earl Grey flavor. Whilst experimenting with different muffin recipes, I ended up creating my hit Orange Cardamom muffins. The success of these made me super confident – why not be the muffin queen? So I did some more experimenting, and ta-da! Try these delicious Earl Grey muffins on for size!
What’s the Tea?
These muffins are doubly infused with Earl Grey flavor – both in the topping and the muffin itself. For this recipe, you’ll need 4 tea bags of high-quality Earl Grey tea. I used Harney & Sons, which yielded a very aromatic result. As a huge tea aficionado, I also recommend Numi and Twinings tea. You can also use loose-leaf Earl Grey! Just measure out 1 teaspoon of Earl Grey for each tea bag.
Here’s a tip if you do use teabags though – make sure you snip the paper dangly thing off when you add it to the saucepan. There’s been too many times where I noticed it burning since it’ll hang right by the convection coils. Oops! No kitchen fires, please.
Best of Toppings
For the topping, I improvised and threw together honey, lavender, and loose-leaf tea. It worked amazingly! The double honey in the topping and the milk mixture ties the muffin together, and lavender perfectly accentuates the Earl Grey without overpowering it. Each bite becomes a delicious, textured mix of sweetness, tea flavor, and fresh blueberries. Using loose Earl Grey does mean that some of the dark tea leaves will appear on the topping. It can look a little confusing for some people – like did a leaf get shredded in these muffins? but the taste is 100% worth it.
Let’s get started with these delectable Earl Grey Muffins!
The Best Earl Grey Blueberry Muffins
Equipment
- Muffin tin
- Muffin foil or paper holders
- sauce pan
- food processor
Ingredients
Earl Grey Blueberry Muffins
- 1¼ cup all-purpose baking flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cups milk
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- ½ cup canola oil
- ½ cup white sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 cup blueberries
Lavender-Honey Crumble Topping
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 pinch dried lavender
- ½ teaspoon lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon loose Earl Grey tea
Instructions
Earl Grey Muffins
- First, preheat your oven to 395°F.
- In a small saucepan, heat up your milk. Once it is simmering, add in 3 tea bags & honey. Let simmer for 5 minutes, and then turn off the heat and let the tea bags sit for another 5 minutes in the sauce pan before discarding.
- Mix the dry ingredients together – your flour, salt & baking powder. Then in another bowl, whisk your white & brown sugar with the canola oil. Add in the almond extract.
- Carefully combine your wet ingredients with your dry ingredients. The add the tea mixture – make sure to measure it in cups because some of the tea may have evaporated. Fill any missing tea mixture with fresh milk. Stir together, and then fold in the blueberries.
- Scrape the mixture into 12 equal cupcake liners of your muffin tin.
Lavender-Honey Crumble
- In a food processor, add brown sugar, lavender, lemon zest, loose Earl Grey tea, and honey. Mix until it forms a crumble, and then add it evenly to the tops of the muffins. You may have a little left over.
- Bake the muffins for 18-20 minutes. A skewer inserted should come out clean. Rest for 5 minutes, and enjoy!
These muffins are mouthwateringly delicious, but in case you and your folks can’t finish it in time, these will keep for a week easily refrigerated, or 1-2 days at room temperature. They taste best after they’ve cooled to room temperature from baking, but they’re still delicious right out of the fridge – that crumb topping and crunch is absolutely to die for!
Variations
- Want to make it vegan? Super simple – just swap the honey with maple syrup and swap cow’s milk with almond or oat milk.
- Change it up! Try experimenting with other ingredients as well, like nuts and cranberries. Note that if you sub the blueberries with dried fruit, it’ll require likely a shorter baking time.
I’m super proud of this recipe and glad I can share it with all of you! Feel free to experiment on this recipe as well.
Maybe add more lemon zest & lemon juice, or experiment with another kind of black tea. Maybe next time, I’ll make boba milk tea muffins with tapioca ball toppings?
If you enjoyed this recipe, don’t forget to give it a rating. See you all next time!
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