Down East Blueberry Muffins
Maine grows a quarter of the country's blueberries. Here's the muffin recipe that does them justice — fresh berries, a hot oven, and a pat of butter melting into the split top.
Ask a New Englander where Down East starts and you’ll get a coastal answer: Penobscot Bay, running northeast to the Canadian border. According to Down East magazine, the term goes back to colonial sailing days. Ships leaving Boston for the Maine ports rode the wind at their backs — sailing downwind, so, down east. Coming home to Boston meant sailing up. Plenty of Mainers still talk about heading “up to Boston,” even though Boston sits roughly fifty miles south of Maine’s southern border.
Which brings us to the berries. Maine produces over a quarter of all blueberries grown in the United States. That’s why the blueberry muffin is the muffin of New England, full stop. The recipe below is the one I keep coming back to. Pull them from the oven, split one while it’s still hot, drop a pat of butter on each half, and you’ll understand why no other muffin gets a look in.
The Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffin: Why Bostonians Still Argue About It
Mention the Boston blueberry muffin to anyone who shopped downtown before 1996 and you will get a specific answer back: the Jordan Marsh muffin. The Filene’s-rival department store at Washington and Summer ran a basement bakery that turned out roughly 200,000 blueberry muffins a week from the 1940s through the early 1990s, and the muffin was a destination unto itself. Shoppers stopped to buy a half-dozen with their bags from the third-floor coat department.
The muffin had three distinguishing features:
- A coarse-sugar crown. The tops were dipped in granulated sugar before baking, producing a crackled, sparkling crust that snapped when you split the muffin and held the butter you dropped on after.
- A crushed-berry batter base. Half the blueberries went into the muffin whole; the other half were crushed into the batter so the crumb itself turned a faint blueprint blue. The technique made every bite taste of berry, not just the bites that hit a whole one.
- A real top — not a dome, a crown. The muffin tins were filled to the rim and slightly over, baked in a 425°F oven, and dropped to 350°F after seven minutes. The high heat set the top fast and gave the muffin its characteristic cracked, mushroomed crown.
When Jordan Marsh closed in 1996 — absorbed into Macy’s after the Federated Department Stores acquisition — the basement bakery and the muffin recipe went with it. The recipe surfaced in Boston Globe food columns over the years (Sheryl Julian’s 1998 reconstruction is widely cited as the closest version). It’s been adapted, baked at home, posted to community recipe boards, and tested against memory for thirty years.
A version is still available at a handful of Boston-area bakeries — Quebrada Baking Co. in Wellesley keeps a Jordan Marsh-style muffin on the morning case; Iggy’s Bread in Cambridge has a related variant — but it’s not the original recipe and the muffins know it.
If you want the technique applied to the recipe above: dip the muffin tops in granulated sugar before they go into the oven, crush half the berries into the batter before folding, and start the oven at 425°F for the first seven minutes before dropping to 400°F. You’ll get a closer-to-Jordan-Marsh crown than the standard method produces.
Prep: 10 minutes | Bake: 22 minutes | Yield: 16 muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups blueberries (fresh and local is best; thawed frozen berries will work)
- 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 1/2 cup corn oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
- In a blender or mixer, combine the eggs, milk, and oil.
- Gently combine the wet and dry mixtures, then slowly fold in the blueberries. Don’t overmix; the berries will break and the muffins will turn dense.
- Fill greased muffin tins about two-thirds full and bake for 22 minutes, or until the tops begin to brown.
- Test with a toothpick to make sure the insides are done. Cool on a rack and serve warm.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “Down East” mean? The term comes from colonial sailing days. Ships leaving Boston for Maine ports rode the wind downwind — down east. Heading back to Boston meant sailing up, which is why Mainers still say they’re going “up to Boston” even though Boston is south of the Maine border.
Why are Maine blueberries better for muffins? Maine wild blueberries are smaller and more intensely flavored than cultivated highbush berries. That concentrated flavor holds up through baking without turning the batter bitter or watery.
Can I use frozen blueberries in this recipe? Thawed frozen berries will work. Fold them in gently and don’t overmix — broken berries make the batter purple and the muffins dense.
What makes a muffin top split and brown properly? A hot oven — 400°F — and muffin tins filled only two-thirds full. The batter climbs the sides and the top sets fast, giving you that cracked, browned crown that holds a pat of butter.