My Baking & Cooking Passion

Was flipping through my new recipe book, Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, and I found this interesting recipe (page 10). Me being a lemon lover, and I have most of the ingredients called for in this recipe, except for the sour cream. I have substitute the sour cream with cream cheese & full cream milk, and the result is still as good or even better!

Here’s the inside of the muffins:

The way I like to eat: break open them and put on the margarine or butter… hmmmmmm…. yummy!!

Ingredients:

For the Muffins
2/3 cup sugar
Grated zest & juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cream cheese + 1/2 cup full cream milk, well blended
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter (I used salted), melted & cooled
2 tablespoons poppy seeds

For the Icing
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Method:

1.    Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 200 deg C. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicon muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.
2.    In a large bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingertips or whisk until the sugar is moist anf the fragrance of the lemon strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the cream cheese mixture, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or 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.
3.    Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Tranfer 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 tablespoons of the lemon juice. Stir with a spoon to moisten the sugar, then add enough additional lemon juice, a dribble at a tim, to get an icing that is thin enough to drizzle from the tip of the spoon. You can the drizzle lines of icing over the tops of the muffins or coat the tops entirely, the better to get an extra zap of lemon.