These easy buttermilk muffins are lightly sweetened, have a rich nutty flavour from spelt flour, and are loaded with raspberries!

Photography by Sophie MacKenzie.
Whether we’re focused on modern baking, or more traditional classics, we love simple recipes that allow the ingredients to shine! Enter these fantastic raspberry buttermilk muffins.
A great option for breakfast or snack, the best part is they come together in 15 minutes, and bake up in half an hour. They also freeze well in batches for meal planning.
💖Why You’ll Love This Recipe
✔️ Buttermilk gives the muffins a real lift, making them extra light and fluffy.
✔️ Sweetened with brown sugar and applesauce, they’re not too sweet.
✔️ You can use fresh or frozen raspberries and make them year round.
📋Ingredients
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
- Buttermilk: if you don’t have any on hand or can’t buy it, make your own buttermilk by adding a teaspoon of lemon juice or plain vinegar to whole milk.
- Spelt flour: use a blend of half whole spelt and half light spelt flour if you prefer. Whole wheat and white all-purpose flour can also be used!
- Frozen raspberries: swap in frozen blueberries, blackberries, or any other fruit you like. You can also substitute fresh fruit in these buttermilk muffins in equal amounts!
Use the JUMP TO RECIPE button at the top, or scroll to the bottom of the post to see the printable recipe card with full ingredient measurements and complete instructions.
👩🍳Method
STEP 1: Mix the wet ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
STEP 2: Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and add the buttermilk mixture.
STEP 3: Gently fold in the raspberries.
STEP 4: Scoop into muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes.
💡Top Tips
1. Cool completely before serving. Paper liners have a tendency to stick to still-warm muffins, and cooling will prevent this.
2. Add chocolate chips. Consider adding up to ½ cup of chocolate chips or nuts when you add the raspberries.
3. Don’t over-mix. As soon as the flour is just mixed in, stop stirring. Over-mixing can lead to tough muffins, especially with lower gluten flours like spelt.
📝Recipe Notes
- Note that frozen berries can make the batter stiff and harder to stir.
- If subbing whole wheat, note that recipes using whole wheat flour tend to require more liquid, so keep this in mind if your raspberry muffin batter feels a bit stiff or dry. Just add an extra splash of milk.
- To make dairy-free muffins simply swap out the buttermilk for an equal amount of plant-based milk mixed with either 1 teaspoon of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar.
- Store muffins in the fridge for up to five days, or at room temperature for 2-3 days in a sealed container. Freeze in a large airtight container with a tight fitting lid for up to three months.
- Try an apple version with 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, and 1 cup diced apples instead of berries.
❓Recipe FAQ
Buttermilk helps to break down gluten strands, making for a more tender, cake-like muffin. It also reacts more with baking soda, resulting in a greater rise.
While it comes down to individual recipes, oil often makes for moister muffins. This is because it’s a bit harder to over-mix with oil and because butter is solid at room temperature.
We argue that frozen berries are often easier to add to muffin batter as they won’t break down when mixing like fresh berries do. No need to thaw first!
🧁More Great Muffin Recipes
Recipe
Raspberry Buttermilk Muffins
Description
Equipment
- Measuring cups and spoons or a digital kitchen scale
- Muffin tin
- Muffin liners
- 2 Mixing bowl
- Wire rack
- Wooden spoon
Ingredients
- ¼ cup oil
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ⅓ cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ cup buttermilk
- 2-¾ cups light spelt flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1-½ cup frozen raspberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC) and line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups.
- Combine the oil, brown sugar, applesauce, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk in a bowl and set aside.
- In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. Add the raspberries and fold gently until just combined.
- Divide the muffin batter equally between the prepared muffin cups.
- Bake the buttermilk muffins for 20-23 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly touched.
- Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
- Muffins will keep at room temperature, stored in an airtight container, for up to three days.
Nutrition
This post first appeared September 22, 2019, and was last updated September 2022.
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