Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

Clearly I have a lemon problem. I love lemons. I love yellow. And I love muffins. And if all of those things are baked together into one format, plus poppyseeds, sign me up for lots of 'em. I made orange poppyseed muffins as the inaugural muffin of muffin Monday in the UK but my fav is lemon poppyseed. I also have a large bag of poppyseeds that need to be used up.

 

The thing about muffin recipes, and most easy bake items, is they follow the same order of operations. Dry ingredients in large bowl, wet ingredients in small bowl, mix together, fold in bonus items, spoon out batter, bake and eat. Easy peasy.

 

So in this case, our bonus items are lemon zest and poppyseeds. Lemon zest (zest in general) is very strong and a little goes a long way. The one down side to zest is the actual zesting. Many a knuckle skin has been lost to an overzealous zesting and there's a whole graveyard for sponges that died trying to clean the graters. But I've found that a bottle brush (like for baby bottles) is perfect for cleaning a zester! Pro tip, you're welcome.

At any rate, the zest is added to the sugar and poppyseeds are folded in last. An all around team effort.

 

Recipe

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 2/3 cup refined sugar (or light brown sugar)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons poppyseeds
• 1 Tablespoon grated lemon zest

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Prepare the muffin pan and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the melted butter, milk, eggs and vanilla with the sugar and lemon zest.
4. Carefully add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and fold together until incorporated. 
5. Add the poppyseeds and fold together until evenly mixed. 
6. Fill the muffin cups half-way and bake until golden brown.