Raspberry Muffins with Crumb Topping

These Raspberry Muffins are a real delight - fluffy, moist, and packed with tart raspberries, finished off with a delicious crunchy crumble topping.  They make the perfect treat for breakfast, dessert, or an anytime snack. 

This raspberry muffin recipe is one of my oldest, tried and true recipes.  It used to be a big hit with the customers when I had my bakery.  The muffin itself is so beautifully soft and moist, with a slight tanginess to it from the sour cream.  The tartness of the raspberries works really well with the sweetness of the muffins and in my opinion, no muffins are complete without crunchy muffin tops! 

I use the same easy muffins recipe for my Cheesecake Stuffed Blueberry Muffins, and the crumb topping is the same topping I use on my Blueberry Crumble recipe.  If you want to get really creative with your muffin flavors though, be sure to check out my Pistachio Muffins which have their own, specially developed pistachio crumble on top!  But for a fresh fruit treat, it really doesn't get better than this raspberry muffins recipe.  I hope you'll love it as much as I do! 

Jump to:

• Why You'll Love These Raspberry Muffins
• Ingredients
• Make the Crumb Topping
• Make the Raspberry Muffins
• Video
• How to Get a Nice Dome on your Muffins
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Equipment
• Storage
• More Fruit Recipes
• Recipe

Ingredients

Just a few simple ingredients make this super easy raspberry muffin recipe. 

• Flour - Use all-purpose flour (plain flour) for these muffins. 

• Sugar - This recipe calls for white superfine sugar (caster sugar in the UK).

• Butter - The butter is actually for the crumble topping, not for the muffins.  It's best to use unsalted butter. There's no need to bring your cold butter to room temperature as we will be melting it anyway.   

• Eggs - Use large eggs and always free-range if you can. 

• Vegetable Oil - Oil is the main source of fat in the muffins and it keeps them nice and moist. I like to use vegetable oil, but any kind of flavorless oil will do, like canola oil. 

• Sour Cream - The sour cream creates magic in this muffin recipe, not only does it make super soft and fluffy muffins, but it adds a slight tang to the flavor which works wonderfully with the raspberries. 

• Vanilla - A splash of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste helps to provide a sweet base for the raspberries. 

• Raspberries - You can use fresh raspberries or frozen raspberries.  If it's not raspberry season I like to use frozen as the flavor and quality will generally be better, and will likely mean more juicy raspberries at every time of year.  If using frozen, let them thaw before putting them into your muffins.

Make sure all your cold ingredients have come to room temperature before beginning. 

See recipe card for quantities. 

Make the Crumb Topping

The crumble topping is an important part of this recipe which is not to be missed!  If I could just eat the crunchy tops off of all the muffins, I would!  This is my base muffin crumb topping recipe, and it's super simple and quick to come together. 

• Pour the flour and sugar into a medium bowl and mix together. 

• Melt the butter in the microwave in 30-second increments. 

• Pour ¾ of the melted butter into the sugar/flour mixture and mix together with a fork.  The mixture should start to clump together as it combines. 

• Keep adding a little more butter at a time until all the dry ingredients are mixed in and a nice crumbly texture has formed - you may not need all of the butter so do this gradually. 

• Use the fork to break up the crumble into small pieces, and set aside until you are ready to sprinkle it onto your raspberry muffins! 

Make the Raspberry Muffins

Once you try these homemade raspberry muffins you will never reach for another muffin recipe!  They come together so quickly with just one bowl and a whisk. 

1. Preheat your oven to 425°F / 220°C and line a muffin pan with muffin liners.  
2. In a large bowl, add the sugar and eggs, and whisk together until well combined and slightly paler in color.  

3. Add the other wet ingredients, including the sour cream, vegetable oil, and vanilla.  Whisk until combined. 
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Mix together and then pour into the muffin batter - whisk until there are no lumps.

5. Add the raspberries and fold in gently.  You may want to switch to a wooden spoon or spatula for this part, so the raspberries don't get stuck in the whisk. 

6. Scoop your muffin batter into the prepared muffin tins. Fill your paper liners until they almost reach the top, you want to leave about ¼ of an inch of paper liner at the top.  That doesn't sound like much, but this will help create that lovely muffin dome.  I like to use a large cookie scoop for this, but you can do it with a spoon. 
7. On top of each muffin, sprinkle a generous helping of the streusel topping we prepared earlier. 

8. Bake the muffins at 425°F / 220°C for exactly 5 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 350°F / 180°C without opening the oven, and bake for a further 13 - 15 minutes.  The baking time may vary depending on your oven and the depth of your muffin cups, the best way to tell if they are done is with the toothpick or skewer test.  
   
   Once they are ready, the tops should be a lovely golden brown color, and a skewer inserted into the center of the muffin should come out clean or with moist crumbs.  These are super moist raspberry muffins so the crumbs are okay.  
   Let the muffins sit in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.  

Pro tip: if you find that the muffin liners you usually use sometimes stick to the muffins when peeling them, try spraying each muffin liner lightly with some cooking spray or bake spray before filling them - this should help them to peel away from the muffins more easily.  

Video

Watch my video tutorial for how to make these muffins:

How to Get a Nice Dome on your Muffins

The key to achieving those beautiful, high, rounded muffin tops lies in the baking process. To achieve this, follow a two-step temperature approach. Begin by baking the muffins at a high oven temperature (425°F / 220°C) for the first five minutes. This initial high heat "shocks" the muffins, releasing steam and giving them a rapid rise.

After the first five minutes, your muffins should have puffed up slightly above the muffin liners. Now, reduce the temperature to 350°F / 180°C for the remaining baking time. This step ensures the muffins retain their desired fluffiness and moisture without becoming overbaked or burnt.

Additionally, it's crucial to fill the muffin liners full enough from the start, nearly reaching the top, leaving about ¼ inch of space at the upper edge.  

Substitutions

• Sour cream - The sour cream is an important part of this raspberry muffin recipe as it gives them that super fluffy texture.  If you don't have sour cream though, you can substitute it for Greek yogurt. 

• Vegetable Oil - You can substitute vegetable oil for any other flavorless oil, such as canola oil or sunflower oil.  I wouldn't recommend using anything like coconut oil or olive oil, as these both have a strong flavor which will alter the flavor of the muffins.
   
• Flour - If desired, you could substitute some of the all-purpose flour for almond flour.  I wouldn't recommend swapping more than 50% though, as almond flour will make for more dense muffins, and you want to make sure you still have some of the lightness.  

Variations

• Different kind of berry - You can make this recipe with any kind of berry you like.  I often make it with blueberries, as seen in my Blueberry Cheesecake Muffin recipe.  But strawberries or cranberries also work really well.  

• Lemon Raspberry Muffins - A popular variation of this recipe is to add a hint of lemon, you can do this by adding lemon zest, lemon juice, or both (to taste) to the muffin batter at the same time as adding the wet ingredients. 

• White Chocolate Raspberry Muffins - To kick the sweetness up a notch, try adding a cup of white chocolate chips to the muffin batter, just before adding the raspberries in. 

Equipment

This is one of those easy muffin recipes that really doesn't require much at all to whip them up. 

• Large Mixing Bowl
• Whisk
• Muffin Pan
• Cooling Rack

Storage

The best results from storage really depend on how long you are planning on keeping your muffins.  If you are planning on eating them on the same day, or the day after baking them, store your muffins in a basket or container with a small towel draped over the top.  

It sounds unusual but this will help keep every part of them good, from the softness of the muffins to the crunchiness of the top of the muffins.  However, they will only be good like this for 24 hours, any longer than that and you may end up with dry muffins.  

If you need them to store for longer than 24 hours, I recommend that you store your delicious raspberry muffins in an airtight container, with some paper towel lining the bottom of the container, and keep them at room temperature.  They will be good like this for 3-5 days. 

More Fruit Recipes

If you love baking with fresh fruit, try some of these other fruity dessert recipes.

Recipe