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Two words: blueberry muffins. It can’t get better than that. Nah, it can, with sourdough it can! Sourdough blueberry muffins, my friends!

I’m determined to use all my sourdough discards, it is painful to throw it away! So these days the new normal is something like this:

Feed starter – save discards – bake loaf -bake with the discards

The more I bake with sourdough discards, the more I get to test the effect on other food. So far, I can say that cakes and muffins made with sourdough last longer than those without. Nothing new really, sourdough bread also lasts fresh longer time

Isn’t it amazing? Although… after you make these muffins, I doubt you’ll need an extended shelf life, they’re INCREDIBLE!

Why do sourdough baked goods last longer?

Bread and other baked goods are usually discarded when they lose quality rather than when they get spoiled. Bread gets stale kind of quickly, cakes dry and get crumbly… Although there are many factors involved in why and how baked goods dry out, obviously, moisture content plays a key role.

When you mix your ingredients with water, the very first thing that happens is that those ingredients absorb the water. They start making hydrogen bonds and trapping the water within the matrix. Sugar and salt start dissolving, gluten proteins start hydrating, starch granules starch absorbing water and swelling (you see why autolysis helps to develop the gluten? Wink wink)… And all this takes a long time. Much more time than we think.

If we focus on the physical changes of food, rather than the biological changes of sourdough fermentation, we need to pay close attention to how the water is used in baked goods.

Moisture is key

There are two types of water in food: the bound water that’s forming some type of bond and the free water, that is simply stored within the food matrix.

After baking, the free water is going to be the first to go. It moves from the inside of the food (The crumb) towards the outside. Thus, why crust gets soggy over time, and then it finally evaporates and leaves the food.

Bound water, however, it’s somewhat trapped. It can be part of the gluten network, of swollen starch granules, it can be trapped within the fat matrix etc. The amount of bound water (among other things, of course) is one of the things that determines how long the food stays fresh; because its’ much more difficult to separate from the other ingredients. So the loss of quality related to water is slowed down.

Since sourdough baking needs lots of time, the levain preparation, long fermentation times etc. allow all ingredients to keep absorbing water and binding it to other molecules. The flour had many hours to ensure al the particles are saturated with water (I’m assuming a 100% hydration starter here). These bonds survive throughout the whole process; after the food is baked and starts cooling down, the food holds onto these water bonds.

And that’s one of the reasons food made with sourdough lasts longer!

If you’re interested in other food science facts, feel free to send me an email or DM on social media and I’ll try my best to write a post about it!

Back to the muffins!

Alrighty! About these muffins… I made them small for two reasons: 1) because the number of muffins I eat doesn’t depend on the size, so I’d better eat smaller portions now that the gym is close 🙂 and 2) because I don’t have a large muffin tin and if I buy more kitchen stuff my husband is going to make me sleep in the kitchen.

So obviously, feel free to make larger muffins or smaller. Whatever you prefer!

I like to whip eggs and sugar very well, this helps with the airy structure of the muffin and I think the texture turns out super delicate!

Usually, when you make blueberry muffins, they collapse a little after they come out of the oven, it’s normal, that’s because the water inside of the fruits turns into steam while the muffins are baking, and they swell. Some blueberries might burst, and the others, when they cool down, they collapse because the steam condenses. They also wrinkle because the heat affects the structure of the skin.

I like to let the batter chill in the fridge for at least a couple of hours to allow the baking powder and baking soda hydrate well. Their leavening power is activated by acids and moisture. You can leave the batter in the fridge overnight and bake the muffins first thing in the morning!

If you make this recipe, let me know what you think and tag me on your creations! I love to see what you guys do!

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If you have any suggestions or would want me to make some recipes, adapt a yeast-based recipe into a sourdough one, etc, please contact me and I’ll try my best to respond and plan a recipe!

Happy baking!

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