Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Well I just couldn’t wait to try another Dorie recipe! The first one I bookmarked in my new cookbook was this recipe for lemon poppy seed muffins with a tasty looking icing. It didn’t take long at all to whip up a batch and they are SO GOOD. They are the perfect balance of tart and sweet, leaning more towards sweet with that delicious icing. Good news is that they are not terrible WW points wise! Much better than a muffin from Starbucks! I used fat free sour cream, that probably helped. I took most of these to work today and they were gobbled right up. My favorites were the ones with the raspberry jam in the center, I will probably put that in all of them next time.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours pp.10-11)

Ingredients:

For the Muffins:
2/3 cup sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
3/4 cup sour cream (I used fat free)
2 large eggs
1 t pure vanilla extract
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 T poppy seeds

For the Icing:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2-3 T fresh lemon juice

Directions:

To Make the Muffins:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and the lemon zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and hte fragrance of the lemon strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whish the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the wish or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough-a few lumps are better than overmixing the batter. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean (I baked mine for about 17 minutes since my oven cooks hot and my muffin pan is the horrible dark kind, which can make the bottoms burn if you’re not careful). Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold. Cool the muffins completely on the rack before icing them.

To Make the Icing:
Put the confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl and add about 1 1/2 T of the lemon juice. Stir with a spoon to moisten the sugar, then add enough additional lemon juice, a dribble at a time, to get an icing that is thin enough to drizzle from the tip of the spoon. You can then drizzle lines of icing over the tops of the muffins or coat the tops entirely, the better to get an extra zap of lemon.

Best if served at room temp, plain or with jam.

Variation: fill the muffin cups with half the batter and top each with a teaspoon of jam (I used raspberry in half the muffins) then spoon in the rest of the batter

Serving size = 1 muffin

approx. WW points per serving=4
(note: this is for the ones without jam in the center, depending on the jam you use it may or may not increase the points value)

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