Mini Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Lemon Glaze

While the rest of the country seems to be enjoying a nice thaw, the weather in SoCal has been quite tempestuous at best. Persistent rain showers on the weekends turns in to sunny, but extremely windy days with uber chilly nights. I suppose I can't complain since I never had to trudge through freezing temps or shovel my car out of the snow this winter, but a girl can still wish for the warm weather to come back! When all else (and mother nature) fails, I bake something citrusy to remind me of sunny days and springtime!

While I was baking these miniature, bite sized delights, I couldn't but help wonder who first thought that lemon and poppy seeds would make a stellar combination. Poppy seeds are so strange, yet so delicious, adding a nice crunch to an otherwise light muffin. A sweet lemony glaze sends these muffins over the top, and makes them so pretty, don't you think?


Being a lover of all things lemon, I didn't mind that I used quite a lot of lemon in this recipe.  Fresh lemon juice and zest add a nice zing to the batter, while fat free lemon yogurt keeps these moist and tender.  If you're crazy and would like to tame down your zing level, feel free to substitute vanilla or plain yogurt for the lemon. 

Ok, before I start babbling....back to Lost!  I can't even believe I'm multitasking during my favorite TV show!  Is there rehab for habitual multitaskers?!

Mini Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Lemony Glaze
Adapted from Bon Appéti, May '09

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (8 oz container) lemon yogurt
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon (packed) finely grated lemon peel
2 large eggs
1/8 cup poppy seeds

lemon icing
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°
1. Butter and flour three mini muffin pans or line with paper liners. Whisk flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, and baking soda in medium bowl. Whisk yogurt and lemon juice in small bowl to blend.

2. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, and lemon peel in large bowl to blend. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition until mixture is light and fluffy, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Beat in dry ingredients in 3 additions alternately with yogurt mixture in 2 additions. Mix just until blended. Mix in poppy seeds. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups by generous tablespoonfuls.

3. Bake muffins until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool in pans 5 minutes. Remove muffins from pans and cool on rack.

4. Once completely cooled, mix 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice with powdered sugar. Continue adding powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached (about 1/2 cup)

Blueberry Lemon Ricotta Muffins

Tales of a chronic multi-tasker: I kid you not. As I write this, I am simultaneously watching the utterly delightful movie Julie & Julia (uh, finally!), baking cookies (in the toaster oven - don't ask), and rubbing my dog's belly with my foot (spoiled brat). Lately I feel as if my life just keeps trucking along while my body just really, really wants to morph into a sedentary couch potato. Instead, I ran five miles this morning...while listening to my iPod, reading a magazine and watching the morning news. Blast. Try again.

Well thankfully when life gets me down, I bake! After performing an end of the week inventory of the refrigerator, I found that I needed to play a little Iron Chef and figure out what to do with leftover ricotta cheese, blueberries, already zested lemons and celery. Even after channeling my inner Chef Morimoto, I couldn't think of a practical application for the celery, but I did create these lovely Blueberry Lemon Ricotta Muffins.

Combining a variety of internet sources, I came up with a recipe that used the lemon juice from my already-zested lemons and the zest of an un-juiced, but nearly-end-of-life-lime. While clearing the pantry, I randomly found exactly 1 cup left of whole wheat pastry flour and used this instead of 2 cups of all-purpose flour. And finally, I made cutie mini muffins from the scraps of batter left in the mixing bowl. Don't let a crumb of these go to waste!

Hopefully eating one of these will put a smile on your face. It worked for me! Off to go rescue those cookies then finally concentrate on the movie!

Blueberry Lemon Ricotta Muffins
Adapted from Baking with Dorie and Recipe Girl
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
½ stick (1/4 cup) butter, softened
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
zest from 1 lime (medium to large size)
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 large egg
1½ Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 heaping cup of fresh blueberries
coarse sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 12 cupcake tins with paper liners.

2. Whisk the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.

3. Add sugar and zest to a large mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon, rub zest with sugar until sugar is moist and fragrant.

4. Using an electric mixer, add butter to sugar and beat until creamy. Beat in applesauce, ricotta, then egg, lemon juice and vanilla extract. Add dry ingredients and stir just until blended. Carefully fold in blueberries.

5. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.

6. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean

7. Place on wire rack to cool.

Tired of pumpkin recipes?

...well, too bad. Here's one more.

In California, the sunny days and warm temperatures do nothing to remind me of Autumn. Where are all the gorgeous red and yellow leaves, the cool fall breezes, perfect football weather...even the Halloween decorations?! Pretty much, my only reminder of Fall around these parts are the comforting stews, spicy breads and pumpkin recipes I've been spotting all over the blogosphere. So, to all you cooks out there, thanks for keeping me in touch with reality.

I purchased a huge can of pumpkin in an overzealous attempt to remind myself of my once favorite season in the Midwest. Ever since, we've been enjoying pumpkin after pumpkin after pumpkin recipe. I'm not sick of it yet.

These pumpkin mini-chocolate chip muffins are a byproduct of a loaf recipe I've been making for quite awhile now. I thought I'd vary things a little by making these into bite sized portions so I could pack them in hubby's lunch.

Adding in a packet of fat free vanilla pudding mix keeps the muffins moist. After reading the original recipe again, I believe you're supposed to add in actual pudding, but after baking several batches of the mistake, we think we'll keep it this way! You can also halve the recipe since this will make either 2 8x4 inch loaves or a lot of muffins.

For those on a healthy kick, raisins make a good substitute for the chocolate chips.

If you haven't already, don't forget to enter here for the cookbook giveaway!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins / Bread

2 cups sugar
2 cups canned pumpkin
1/2 cup canola oil
1 packet of fat free vanilla pudding mix
4 large egg whites
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup mini chocolate chips (or raisins)

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Make sure to measure flour lightly and not pack it in.

Combine flour, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl with a whisk. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, stirring just until moist. If mixture is too dry, add in a tablespoon of yogurt. Stir in chocolate chips.

Spoon batter into 2 (8 x 4-inch) loaf pans coated with cooking spray or greased standard muffin tins. For loaves, bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean; or, for muffins, 15-20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on a wire rack, and remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

Muffin Lady Update & Chicken Salad Sammies

Another day, another muffin. I promise this is the last muffin post for awhile, and for those sick of 'em (you crazy fool, you), I have another quick treat down below.

Thanks to everyone for sending me recipes. You've successfully fed into my muffin making obsession and I will be making them shortly once I recover from this muffin binge. I'm sure it won't take long. I recover quickly, thank God.

I made yet another batch of Raisin Bran muffins and think I like 'em better. These banana filled babies received an A+ on the day-after dryness test. I'm not sure if its the added fat from the butter or the moisture from the mashed bananas, but these do not remind me of the dry bran muffins I'm used to!



Here's the recipe I modified from the Kellogg's website for any of you gettin' rid of your cereal. Kristal, I know. It's blasphemy :) Because I have no mixer in the studio, I first melted the butter as opposed to creaming it with a mixer. Even if I did have my beloved KitchenAid, I think I like this low maintenance method -- one less thing to wash!

Ok, on to life beyond muffins!

I made this chicken salad sammy for hubby's lunch today. He seemed to find it strange that I stopped to take photos as he was waiting to leave for work, but I've gotta show off my creations, right? I never use a hard and fast recipe when making chicken salad, so if you'd like some better guidance try visiting Picky Palate or The Pioneer Woman who are much better teachers than me on this short attention span Friday.

My version starts with a poached chicken breast. It's up to you whether you prefer to dice or shred your chicken. Personally, I like my chicken shredded as diced chicken sometimes reminds me of the bad pasta or chicken salads that use pre-fab processed chicken chunks. Yuck.

The dressing consists of nothing fancier than a little Hellman's mayo, lemon juice, spicy brown mustard, Kosher salt & fresh ground pepper, diced red peppers, and green grapes (cut in half). I season as I go so its hard to give exact measurements. I often cook as my mom taught me - just wing it!

Top your chicken salad with some cucumbers & spinach and you're on your way to a healthy lunch! Have a great weekend.

Help a Manic Muffin Lady

DC is wonderful, but I'm starting to miss the luxuries of home: my trusty red Kitchenaid mixer, a toaster oven, my Calphalon pans, oh and of course, my bed. Nothing's better than your own bed, dont ya think? Because the college kid has no other baking tools beyond a muffin pan, I have been well, baking a lot of muffins to satisfy my need for baking. When I get back home, I've already compiled a list of quick breads, yeast rolls and cornbread that I'm dying to make.

Today's muffins come as a courtesy of our cereal addiction. When cereal is on sale, I cannot pass it up and as a result, we have more cereal boxes than living space in the studio right now. How two people can devour 5 boxes of cereal is really beyond me. In an attempt to clear out the pantry, I went after my least favorite cereal,Raisin Bran and tried to repurpose it as muffins.




Raisin Bran cereal is soaked in a milk mixture along with molasses, brown sugar, oil and an egg. To boost the 'excitement' factor of sometimes blah bran muffins, I added cinnamon, chopped apples and extra raisins to the batter.

These were delightful straight out of the oven - warm & fluffy. A day later, the muffins were still good but a little bit on the dry side - nothing a quick 5 second nuke in the microwave didn't fix. Is this just the nature of bran muffins? I seem to have run into this day-old dry-bran muffins dillema many a time - they're never quite the same the 2nd day around.

Readers, please help! I need to get rid of this box of Raisin Bran. Do you have any tried & true Raisin Bran or bran muffin recipes to share? Something that doesn't dry out the next day? If so, please share!

In the meantime, here's my recipe. I'd suggest gobbling these guys up on the day you make them. Making half of a recipe always helps as well.

Molasses Apple Raisin Bran Muffins (Low Fat)

2 cups Raisin Bran cereal
handful of extra raisins (use your judgement. My cereal didn't have enough raisins)
1/2 of an apple, cored, peeled & diced
3/4 cup milk
1 extra large egg, slightly beaten
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease or line 12 muffin cups with muffin cups liners. In a medium bowl, whisk milk, egg, brown sugar, vanilla, molasses and oil in a bowl until combined. Stir in cereal, raisins and apple. Allow to stand for 10 minutes.

2. Stir cereal mixture again to break up cereal. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and pinch of salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and add cereal mixture. Stir until just combined and divide batter among muffin cups. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out of center clean.

Makes 12 muffins.

Blueberry Dishwasher Muffins

Don't Blink....


Yes, you really are seeing blueberry muffins in a dishwasher. See, I mentioned in my last post that I've been spending time in DC. I suppose what I didn't explain is that I'm visiting DC while hubby is working here for the summer and subletting a studio apartment from a college student...

Now, think back on your college days. I don't know about you, but my most sophisticated kitchen tool in college was probably the hand held mixer my mom told me I'd absolutely need one day. She received the mixer as a gift when she got married. Not to date my lovely mom, but that was a long time ago. That thing was ancient.

Now, just imagine the tools I'm dealing with in this college kitchen. Living here has been quite the adventure. There are no mixing bowls, 1-2 pots, no baking dishes (except for a crusty muffin pan), and not even an ancient hand held mixer in sight. I've become creative as of late, using a huge stock pot to mix the dry ingredients and Tupperware to mix the wet ingredients for these muffins.

Of course, when it came time to cooling the muffins, I improvised and used the dishwasher racks. Don't worry, they were clean.
In any case, I made two batches of muffins: one using sour cream, the other using a mixture of sour cream and blueberry yogurt and a spritz of lemon zest. I also experimented with adding a brown sugar cinnamon streusel to the tops of some. The verdict in this 2-people-living-in-a stuido-with-no-kitchen-tools household? The blueberry yogurt & sour cream muffins with streusel topping were the best. They also came out a bit darker than the ones pictured above.

Oh, and if you were wondering. I caved. It may be too hot to cook, but its never too hot for blueberry muffins. Living in a studio will remind you to use the oven sparingly, though.

For those of you slumming it like me, this recipe requires no ancient hand mixer. Lucky you!

Best Blueberry Yogurt Muffins

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 large egg
1 cup granulated sugar (7 ounces)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted and cooled
3/4 cup sour cream
6 oz container of blueberry yogurt
1 1/4 cups blueberries
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl (or huge stock pot if you have to!) until combined. Whisk egg in second medium bowl (aka Tupperware) until well-combined and light-colored, about 20 seconds. Add sugar and whisk vigorously until thick; add melted butter in batches, whisking to combine after each addition. Add sour cream and yogurt in batches, whisking just until combined. Stir in lemon zest.

3. Add blueberries to dry ingredients and gently toss to combine. Add sour cream mixture and fold with rubber spatula until batter comes together and berries are evenly distributed, 25 to 30 seconds (small spots of flour may remain and batter will be thick). Do not overmix.

4. Use ice cream scoop or large spoon to drop batter into greased muffin tin. Bake until light golden brown and toothpick or skewer inserted into center of muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating pan from front to back halfway through baking time. Invert muffins onto wire rack, stand muffins upright, and cool 5 minutes.

Runner up Blueberry Muffins
source: He who must not be named.

If you are curious, read a little more here.

Check out the Weekend Breakfast Blogging Roundup at Monsoon Spice featuring summer fruits & veggies!