Red Currant Muffins

These delicious red currant muffins are lovely sweet vanilla muffins full of tart little red currants, fresh from the market. This is the perfect recipe to throw together with any of the summer berries you can find. Bake it in a cake pan to cut and serve later, or in a muffin tin for summery breakfasts and snacks.

Red currants are definitely more common in European countries than in North America. The season is short and currants hit the market stands in July. Currants are tart and can vary in colour: there are white currants, red currants, and even black currants (known as cassis in French).

You can add currants to jams (like this strawberry and red currant jam), muffins (like in the red currant muffin recipe below), and even cakes (like in this simple blackcurrant cake). If you'd like to see more ideas, read about baking with fresh currants.

Jump to:

• Ingredients to Make Vanilla Muffins with Red Currants
• Fresh Currants Versus Dried Currants
• Substitutions and Variations
• How to Make Muffins With Red Currants
• Fruit Muffin FAQs
• Other Fruit Muffins to Try
• 📖 Recipe

Ingredients to Make Vanilla Muffins with Red Currants

The red currants season is short and will inevitably require a special trip to your local market to get your hands on some. But otherwise, you will need mostly pantry and fridge staples:

• butter, preferably unsalted though salted butter will also work. You will omit the salt in the muffin batter if you choose to bake with salted butter.
• granulated sugar—brown sugar could work but choose light brown sugar to avoid overpowering
• large eggs—don't use smaller eggs because your batter may be too dry and the muffins won't be tender
• milk—using full-fat milk (3.25 % fat) will give the muffins a soft, tender texture
• vanilla extract is added to enhance the flavour in the batter—feel free to use store-bought or homemade vanilla extract!
• all-purpose flour (or half all-purpose and half whole wheat flour) is needed to bind all the ingredients together and give the muffins more structure
• leavening agents—baking powder is used, without baking soda since the muffins are made with plain milk Read up on baking soda vs baking powder if you are unsure about the difference between them
• salt is really important to bring out the sweet vanilla flavour which can get lost. Don't skip it. I like to use Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but table salt will work, though the muffins will be saltier and you may want to halve the salt in that case.
• fresh red currants–fresh red currant berries are stripped and separated from the stems and branches. Make sure to rinse them and blot them dry with a clean towel or paper towel.
• sliced almonds

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Fresh Currants Versus Dried Currants

Red currants (or white/black currants) are not the same as dried currants and if you dried a bunch of red currants, you would not have dried currants like what you buy in stores. Dried currants come from small grapes known as Corinthian grapes (raisins de Corinthe in French). And these tiny grapes are dried to form what is called dried currants, just like regular grapes are dried into raisins.

Dried currants are used in recipes for light fruitcake and homemade mincemeat for mincemeat tarts.

Substitutions and Variations

• Butter: if you'd prefer to make these muffins without butter, you can replace it with 125 mL (½ cup) of canola oil, mixing the oil with the liquids.
• Sugar: you can make these muffins with white sugar or light brown sugar.
• Nuts: I topped the muffins with sliced almonds, but you could also top them with chopped pecans or walnuts. You could also sneak in a little almond extract in the batter!
• Nut-free: if you want to make these muffins without nuts, omit the sliced almonds in the topping or replace them with the same amount of pumpkin seeds.
• Berries: these muffins will work with wild blueberries as well if you prefer. Replace them cup-for-cup
• Orange: if you'd like orange-flavoured red currant muffins, incorporate the zest of an orange in the muffin batter.
• White chocolate: berries and white chocolate make such a great pairing! Feel free to add 125–250 mL (½–1 cup) of white chocolate chips to the batter when you fold in the fruit.

How to Make Muffins With Red Currants

The mixing method I used for this muffin recipe is the reversed creaming method. All the dry ingredients and the sugar are whisked together, then the softened butter is worked into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles sand. At that point, you add the wet ingredients (which are already mixed together before adding them to the dry mixture).

I prefer this method over the muffin method or the two-bowl method for two reasons:

1. I like to bake my muffins with butter, but incorporating the melted butter with the cold wet ingredients makes it clump and then it doesn't incorporate evenly into the muffin batter in the end.
2. You could first incorporate wet and dry ingredients, then stir in the melted butter into the muffin batter, but for this, I find that adds too many steps and it can be hard to incorporate a liquid fat properly in an already mixed batter, which leads to more mixing, which isn't ideal!
3. I don't want to use any small electric appliance for muffins, so the creaming method is out: muffins should be easy! 

This is the easiest way I've found to bake muffins with butter and to incorporate the butter easily. This method works great! Try it!

Step 1: start by making the crumble topping by creaming the butter and sugar together (image 1) before adding the flour (image 2). I find it easier to mix the topping by hand with my fingertips until the mixture forms a crumbly sugar cookie dough (image 3). Set aside for later.

Note: this sweet crumble topping will melt onto the tops of the muffins as they bake, creating a delicious crunchy muffin top that we all love!

Step 2: Whisk together the wet ingredients (milk, eggs, and vanilla) (image 4). In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (image 5) before adding in the cubed butter (image 6) and working it in until the mixture resembles coarse sand (image 7).

Step 3: Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients (image 8), then mix it in to form a thick batter (image 9). I like to use a Danish dough whisk for muffin batters.

Step 4: Coat the red currants in flour (image 10) before folding them into the thick vanilla muffin batter (image 11).

Step 5: Use a disher to scoop the muffin batter (image 12) into paper-lined muffin pans (image 13).

Step 6: Top each muffin with a generous amount of the sugar crumble topping and sliced almonds (image 14) then bake them on the middle rack until puffed and golden (image 15).

Tip: Use a cake tester to check that the muffins are baked in the middle before taking them out of the oven.

Fruit Muffin FAQs

Other Fruit Muffins to Try

If you need more fruit muffin inspiration, try these honey blueberry muffins, rhubarb muffins, or these plum coffee cake muffins. And if it's not summer, my go-to recipe is for these date bran muffins, which are my all-time favourite muffin, even if it's not really cool.

If you tried this recipe for the best red currant muffins (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

📖 Recipe