Mini Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Hello CUTIES (mini muffins)! I love my new MINI muffin pan. With the same recipe, you get twice or even triple the quantity! Minis are perfect as snacks and for sharing with others( :

Besides the quantity, mini muffins also taste better in my opinion. The proportion of the fluffy interior and the slightly crunchy exterior is just perfectly balanced. HAHA. Total BS.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours
- makes 24 mini muffins

*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
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

To Make the Muffins:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F
2. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan (24 molds in a mini- size muffin pan*) or fit the molds with paper muffin cups.
3. In a large bowl, rub the sugar and the lemon zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of the lemon is prominent and strong.
4. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
5. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together until well blended.
6. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. (Don’t worry about being thorough-a few lumps are better than over- mixing the batter. )
7. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
8. 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.
9. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.
10. Cool the muffins completely on the rack before icing them.

To Make the Icing:
1. Put the confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl and add about 1 1/2 T of the lemon juice.
2. 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.
3. 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.

*Note:
- Substituted AP flour with whole wheat flour
- Halved the recipe and made 16 mini muffins
- Skipped on the icing



Taste: 4 stars out of 5
Light and refreshing. Sweetness is subtle. Whole wheat flour added a strange taste. (My taste bud no likely whole wheat ):)

Texture: 4 stars out of 5
Slightly moister than the chocolate muffins I previously baked. Possibly due to the sour cream and butter.

On with my search for the best tasting lemon poppy seed muffins! Why is it that none of the recipes I found online reproduce that ONE delicious LPS muffin I ate a while back ): It was so tangy, sweet and SUPER moist! But I guess I am a step closer with each recipe I tried :p
(A link to my first attempt)


^my platter of muffins <3

Avocado Cream Cheese Cookies

Avocado and cream cheese in a cookie? And poppy seed?!?! The sound of this cookie is intriguing enough. I never thought about combining those ingredients into one cookie. The result? Mm, buttery goodness. A little heavy I should say. But the color green just makes it seem that much healthier. Haha.

I was a bit frustrated when pipping these. Mainly because I don't have any suitable pipping tips. I ended up pipping without the tip and only with the plastic ring, which surprisingly was the size I was aiming for. They came out looking okay. The simple scooped out ones turned out pretty cute too. I had them in the oven for a bit longer for that golden brown toasty look. I love it. Green and brown are such great combination. The poppy seed also adds a nice little touch to them. The dough of this cookie reminded me so much of kiwi<3



Avocado Cream Cheese Cookies
recipe from Angie's recipe
yields around 35 small cookies

100 g Butter
1/2 Avocado, mashed
120 g 0.1% Cream cheese
120 g Sugar
2 tbsp Lemon juice
1 tbsp Poppy seeds
230 g All purpose flour
1/2 tsp Baking soda

1. Line 2-3 baking trays with paper.
2. Cream butter, mashed avocado, cream cheese, and sugar together.
3. Add lemon juice and poppy seeds, and beat until light and fluffy.
4. Add in flour, baking soda and mix until incorporated.
5. Fill your piping bag fitted with a star tip half full with cookie batter and pipe out cookies onto the prepared trays. (Alternatively you can use a cookie gun to press any desired patterned cookies.)
6. Preheat oven to 190C/375F.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the cookies are lightly golden.
8. Transfer them on the wire rack to cool.



Texture-wise, these cookies are more toward the chewy side. I liked that. Sort of a cross between cake and mochi. The outer layer has a slight crunch to them when they were fresh from the oven. Overnight, the ones that I left in the oven for a little longer was still a little crunchy. The other ones were just soft. I give these 4 stars out of 5 for texture( :

Taste-wise, I was expecting more given the name of these. I couldn't taste much of the cream cheese nor avocado. The butter was definitely prominent. I want to say that theses are shortbread-like. 3.5 stars out of 5 for taste.

citrus-y

What a productive Saturday! I finally got poppy seed and got to attempt to reproduce the muffins my friend made. I was surprised how much I liked them when I took my first bite at her muffin (given that I am not a big fan of sour-y things).

As much as I wanted to like the muffins I baked, I have to admit that they have not met my standard (yet). I guess mine had a healthier spin than my friend's. They were lemon-y and definitely less sweet. As you can see, I tried adding a glaze to intensify the sweetness.



Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
recipe from and then I do the dishes
-makes 12
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons poppy seeds
1 egg
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
2 large lemons, zested (I used 1.5 lemon)
1/4 cup melted butter
1 1/4 cups buttermilk (or try the substitute if you don't have buttermilk)
1 tsp vanilla


Preheat oven to 350F.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
In a smaller bowl combine the sugar and lemon zest.
Rub them together until the sugar is slightly moist and fragrant.
Add the egg, the butter, the buttermilk and the vanilla. Mix well.

Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients, and stir just until moistened.
(Do not over mix. The batter will be fairly thick.)
Divide batter evenly into 12 paper-lined or greased muffin cups.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.
Cool.
Eat.

This was the first time I encountered lemon zest in my recipe. I googled to check if I could maybe substitute it with lemon juice.. but according to sources online, lemon juice is more acidic and lacks the citrus flavor that lemon zest brings. Don't skip out on the lemon zest. They add a little texture to the muffins but maybe reduce on the amount if you are like me who is not a big fan of lemon(:

*To see more beautiful shots of these muffins, go to Nicole's tumblr