Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

These muffins were inspired by a post from Susan Eats London. How incredible does that cake sound? However, since I planned to make these for new year’s day, I was still trying to use up all the leftover stuff in my fridge. That meant I wasn’t buying the stuff I didn’t have for her recipe, and I would need to add some of my own. In the end, I turned to The Joy of Cooking for a substitute recipe, and boy was that helpful. Who knew I could piece together parts of different recipes to suit what I had in the house? I was pretty proud of myself for MacGyvering these together.

I started off with the base recipe provided in the cookbook, and added in the stuff necessary to make both sour cream and lemon poppyseed muffins.  I made these muffins as minis, but you could certainly make them full sized by adjusting the bake time.

LEMON POPPYSEED MUFFINS – made about 3 dozen minis/ 12 regular-sized

• 2 cups AP flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Large Eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil (from Susan’s post)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp poppy seeds
• zest of one lemon
• lemon juice from half a lemon

I want to mention again how this recipe was born from the random stuff I had in my fridge. You could also make these with a whole cup of milk, or a whole cup of sour cream. I just happened to have a bit of sour cream left, so I made up the difference with milk, and added in the lemon juice for both acid and the extra lemony oomph. That’s why this recipe looks so… “creative.”

Start off by combining your sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl, and massaging them together with your fingertips. This will help to incorporate the flavor better throughout the muffin.

Preheat your oven to 350ºF, and grease your muffin tins, or line them with paper.

Then, in a large bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients – flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and poppy seeds.

In another larger bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream, milk, lemon juice, oil, vanilla, and the sugar/zest combo.

Add your liquids to the dry ingredients, and mix until just incorporated. Use as few stirs as you can to make sure they don’t end up dense. Then spread the batter out evenly among the tins.

Bake regular muffins for about 17 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (You might also want to leave them an extra minute to brown up a bit. Mine, you’ll see, were pretty pasty-looking.) Bake mini muffins for 10-12 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

And that’s it. These are really easy to make, and they were fantastic. A huge hit both at brunch and at work the next day where I brought the leftovers. I’d definitely make these again! Anyone else have favorite recipes you created by clearing out your pantry or fridge?

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Tags: baking, cleaning out the fridge, leftovers, lemon poppyseed, muffins, photos, poppy seed, recipe, step by step