Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I love this recipe, made it three times so far. They do rise nicely actually (I've posted a pic), and I do feel for every poster who got flat or sunken tops. Whoever braves baking deserves stellar results, for baking is not for the faint of heart.

Here's what I think:
I don't know how essential the eggs' temperature is (frankly, I never take the time to pre-warm the eggs; by the time they're mixed with the fat and sugar or beaten fluffy they're not going to be that cold anyway). But:

A. When the recipe says in steps 6, 7 and 9 "With the mixer on low speed", "Beat just until smooth" etc, etc., keep in mind that muffin batter needs to be mixed very, very little, so the dry ingredients are just moist. To me that means no mixer for mixing, but a wooden spoon, and "mixing" means lifting up and down with the spoon through the batter about 5 times, not more (5 turns for the dry ingredients, 5 for the yoghurt, etc) until the batter is barely mixed. Beat it more than that, and the wheat gluten will do something funny (resulting in dense muffins), the air from the beaten egg whites (that's supposed to make the muffins fluffy) will go wasted, etc.

B. Try mixing the baking powder with lemon juice before adding it to the batter. It will foam a lot, and that's exactly what it's supposed to do.

As one of my friends says, baking is a completely different beast compared to regular cooking. It's a bunch of chemical reactions, so you need to be careful with the amounts, the mixing, and temperatures. Nothing like that in soup or steak. :-) Here's to great, fluffy muffins!

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The reason they were flat is probably due to the eggs being cold (straight from the fridge). When baking, eggs should be used at room temperature. You can either take them out 20-30 minutes before use, or put them in a bowl of warm water while you are doing your prep work.
I made them and they turned out very well, tasty too!

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These tasted good, but the recipe was fussy and the muffins turned out flat. I don't think I will be making these again.

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I've made these a couple times now. The flavor is good, but not quite as lemony as we'd like. I think I might try some lemon greek yogurt instead of the buttermilk next time. They are a little dry and crumbly, but that is due to the butter. I think I rather have the butter flavor than the moistness of oil in these muffins. I have some trouble with them sticking in my non-stick pans (even with spray). A nice muffin though. Thanks!

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Excellent muffins! The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is that I mixed them up using the regular muffin method, and they came out just fine--fluffy and flavorful. I used cast iron muffin pans and they didn't stick at all--just loosened the tops a bit and they flipped right out.

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I used a min-muffin tin, and the muffins were stuck to the pan. I used non-stick spray liberally, so I'm not sure exactly what happened. They taste very good though. I'd recommend using muffin tin liners!

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This is a wonderful recipe. I had recently made Lemon Curd(#61278) and this time when making the muffins I poured 1/2 the batter into paper lined muffins tins, spooned 1 tsp. of Lemon Curd in centre and topped with remaining batter. Although my muffins weren't peaked but flat (probably due to curd)NOBODY complained. I'm thinking of trying them with oranges rather than lemons next time.( FYI - I don't always have plain yogurt or buttermilk so I have substituted sour cream and they still turned out.) Thanks for a great recipe KC.

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Mmmmm, very tasty! I made mine with Splenda, fat free plain yogurt and used extra lemon juice. Also made sure the eggs, yogurt and butter were at room temp. I didnt have any problem with the tops flatening like others, these were nice and round. This recipe is a keeper!

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These muffins were really tasty. I didn't have buttermilk or regular yogurt, so I used Greek yogurt, which is much thicker. This resulted in what you might call either a very thick batter or very thin dough, so it was a little bit of a challenge folding in the egg white, but doing it very gently with a rubber spatula, it folded in quite nicely. Then I baked them and, guess what? I got muffin tops!!! Well, they weren't very tall, but at least the muffins were not sunken in like in the other reviews I read. I think I will make them next time with buttermilk to see if there's a big difference in taste, appearance and texture; but these disappeared very quickly.

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My muffins too were a bit flat, slightly concave actually, but the taste was amazing! Actually, my husband said the coffee shop where he used to work's poppyseed muffins were always flat as well, maybe it's a good thing? Either way, I will be making this again. I didn't have a lemon on hand so I didn't add any zest and it was still great. I also made a lemon/almond glaze to top them off. Thanks for posting!

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Cons: I followed the recipe but they turned out completely flat. No beautiful muffin top. I have no idea why. Pros: Lovely, light texture. Not dense at all. Delicate.

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The taste was easily 5 stars. However I did not have any buttermilk and used clabbered milk (vinegar in milk) and then I probably did not beat my whites sufficiently so my cupcakes caved but it was likely my fault. However, the cupcakes were kind of fragile and they had a very light texture that I did not prefer. This is just personal preference. However, I believe I may try the recipe again and put it together in a more typical "muffin fashion". It is a very nice recipe.

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Fabulous recipe. I made it as writen the first time and it was great, second time I used a little more zest and lemon juice - just to give it more pucker - and added a third eggwhite for the heck of it, and they turned out amazing. Definitely satisfies my lemon-poppy seed cravings! Thanks for another goody, KC!

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I made these for breakfast this morning, just for myself and my husband- they were a HIT! They tasted amazing! Instead of using buttermilk or yogurt, I used Sour Cream. I loved the "fluffiness" of the muffins- I know I will be adding this to my cookbook, and making this again and again! Thank you so much! :)

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Nice and fluffy! I used lemon yogurt, and 1/2 lemon 1/2 vanilla extract, and halved the zest. I think next time all lemon extract and the given amount of zest. These were really good but didn't quite have the lemon zing! that I was looking for.

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They were just okay. Between a 2 star and a 3 star rating. They weren't that sweet and were just kind of bland. I don't know why I have such a differing opinion of them compared to everyone else. It seems like a pretty well liked recipe. I'm just sorry I didn't get the satisfaction out of it that everyone else did.

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Husband had a craving, and I thought these would fit the bill. As usual, I made several modifications. I didn't separate or beat the egg whites, I used the yogurt, and didn't have any lemon zest, so added an extra tbsp of lemon juice. I also made them in mini muffin pans and got 35 muffins.

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Very good. Only thing I did differently was use vanilla yogurt and no additional vanilla. It's all I had on hand. I will make these again.

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I made the following changes and they came out absolutely delicious and healthier. Replace 1/2 the butter w/ applesauce, use Spenda baking blend in place of the sugar (you only have to use half when using Splenda baking blend), repaced half the flour w/ whole wheat pastry flour, added blueberries.

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