Andy is a big fan of Lemon Poppy Seed muffins. He used to say they were his favorite muffins, and they were a regular part of his life when he was working in New York. You don’t see them much these days, even at bakeries. With our anniversary coming up, I thought I’d start testing some recipes to see how they stack up. The first one up I found on Martha Stewart Living, and it was developed by Sarah Carey. If you are curious about how I did with this new recipe for lemon poppy seed muffins, read on.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins Ingredients

2 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour (Note: We went with King Arthur)

1 3/4 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1 Teaspoon Coarse Salt (Note: I followed this amount using coarse sea salt, and I thought it was too salty. I’d go with 1/2 teaspoon next time)

1 Cup Sugar, Plus More for Sprinkling

2 Large Eggs, Room Temperature

1 1/2 Teaspoons Lemon Zest, Plus 1/4 Cup Lemon Juice (Note: I used fresh lemon juice from a Meyer in our backyard)

1/4 Cup Whole Milk, Room Temperature (Note: Turns out the “room temperature” part is very important, and I missed it the first time around)

1 Stick (8 Tablespoons) Unsalted Butter, Melted and Cooled

3 Tablespoons Poppy Seeds, Plus More for Sprinkling (optional)

Recipes Steps

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin How-To Video

Lemon Poppy Seed Recipe Results

Overall, the recipe resulted in nice, fluffy lemon poppy seed muffins. But there are a couple of things I would do differently the next time around. For example:

1. The written directions has 1 teaspoon of coarse salt — that left the muffins a little too salty. In fact, when you watch the video, Sarah Carey says that she is using 3/4 of a teaspoon. I’d take it down slightly further to 1/2 teaspoon, but your mileage may vary.
2. I should have whisked together the eggs and sugar together first. Instead, I whisked together all the wet ingredients together with the sugar at once. I’m not sure it made a huge difference, but it certainly would have been easier doing the sugar and eggs first.
3. The milk should be room temperature. I totally missed this when making the recipe the first time. As Carey explains in the video, you need to do that because your butter has been melted and cooled. When you then add the butter and cold milk together, your butter could congeal and leave you with butter bits. I managed to avoid that, but it took more whisking, which probably killed some of the “lift” in the batter.
4. Always get your zesting and juicing done before you need it. Otherwise, everything needs to sit while you are doing the zesting. It makes me crazy when I forget.
5. The sugar on top can be both regular cane sugar or sanding sugar. I prefer the sanding sugar because it gives it a sparkle.
6. I chose this lemon poppy seed recipe because it didn’t have a lot of steps, nor did it require sour cream of yogurt (which I didn’t have), but I’m curious about what that would result in — I’m guessing an even more moist muffin.

Muffin Photos

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