Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

Before the floods of June '08 devastated downtown and forced my company to move, I worked next to an awesome little coffee shop that had divine lemon poppyseed muffins. Hell, all their muffins were fabulous. But theirs was the first lemon poppyseed muffin I ever truly loved. I think of it often, with it's light, sweet lemon tang, crunchy poppyseeds, and light, fluffy texture. I aspire to muffins of their quality..
I've been craving a lemon poppyseed concoction lately. I had a loaf recipe, but with my Sunday muffin extravaganza I decided to make delight little muffins. Luckily, I stumbled across this recipe and went with it.


Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp poppyseeds
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• zest of 1 lemon or 1 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup plain yogurt (not nonfat)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin tin with nonstick spray.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, poppyseeds, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at time. Add lemon (zest or juice), yogurt, and vanilla and beat until well combined.

Stir in the dry ingredients until moist and just combined.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin. Bake 18-20 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes.

While the muffins cool, mix together the sugar and lemon juice for the glaze. The icing should be runny (so you can drizzle it). I needed to add a bit more lemon juice.

After 5 minutes, remove the muffins from the pan. Drizzle the glaze over the muffins and let cool completely.



I feel the muffins were a bit unbalanced when it came to the lemon flavor. The lemon was VERY subtle within the muffins and overwhelming in the glaze. As I used zest in the muffins, perhaps next time I'll opt for the lemon juice. And perhaps I'll do half lemon juice, half water in the glaze. But all in all, these were nice little muffins