Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I don't have a lot of time to do food blog related things (updating my own, making food to post about, and reading other people's blogs) as school is becoming even more time consuming! But I'm really trying to take some time here and there to update and read blogs. Actually if I'm not in a great mood, reading food blogs always immediately makes me feel better. So thank you everybody for your wonderful blogs - I'm just sorry I don't have more time to read them all and not miss entries.

Anyway, this is just a short post about the first thing I baked from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home To Yours (the infamous cookbook that every food blogger seems to really love so of course I had to go buy it). I bought poppy seeds a while ago but never got around to doing anything with them so when I came across her recipe for lemon poppyseed muffins I knew that was what I should make. And these muffins did not disappoint.

For a while I was going through a healthy muffin baking phase, but of course I will always love the non-healthy more cake like muffins (which I was previously under the delusion that they were good for me since you know, how can a muffin be bad for you?) Dorie's muffins were so delicious. The base has sour cream in it, which makes for such a nice dense cake (I mean muffin), my favourite kind. I will be using this recipe again and again, trying out variations (speaking of which, I love how in Dorie's cookbook she often suggests variations on every recipe.) The first variation I want to try (which definitely cannot be mistaken for a healthy muffin unfortunately) is white chocolate earl grey.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Adapted from Baking From My Home To Yours (Dorie Greenspan)

2/3 cup sugar
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 tablespoons poppy seeds

Preheat the oven to 400F. Prepare 12 molds in a muffin pan with butter or liners.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of lemon strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, thoroughly whisk the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. A few lumps are okay, don't overmix. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly among the muffins 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. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.