Wednesday Baking | Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don't call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays...no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.
I know that on my blog plan, I had written that Oatmeal Pancakes were the topic of the day. But, as so often happens, I'm deviating from my plan.
Even though this happens on a regular basis, I still feel like planning my blog posts helps me to be a slightly less stressed blogger...if I want to deviate from my plan, I can, but if no deviations occur to me, the plan is always there as a backup.
This recipe came into my life when I was a teenager and received a mini Bundt pan as a Christmas present (yes, even back then I liked practical gifts!). The pan came with a few recipes, and this was one of them. My family was quite fond of these little muffins, and we actually served them (in a mini version) at my wedding reception.
I hadn't made these in ages, but I saw a box of pudding mix on my laundry room pantry shelf and remembered that I'd bought a bottle of poppy seeds on clearance, and this recipe came to mind.
The lemon flavor in these comes from a pudding mix, and when I made this batch, I used an off-brand. I didn't think the lemon flavor was as good this way, so I'm going to say that I recommend going brand-name here.
Also, make sure your poppy seeds are fresh. Poppy seeds contain oil, which can get rancid and yucky-tasting (safe to eat, but yukcy). My bottle was not expired, but I don't think mine tasted as fresh as they should have. I'm going to see if I can get some from the bulk bins at my organic market next time.
You "I'm scared of baking with yeast!" people will like this recipe. If you can operate a spoon, you can totally make these.
Before you do anything else, turn your oven on to 350 ° F. That way it'll be hot by the time your muffins are ready to bake.
To make the muffins, first combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Next, beat in the shortening and softened butter (this is easier to do in a mixer!).
Combine the milk, eggs and vanilla.
Stir into the dry ingredients until your batter is smooth.
Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins. This is the sort of batter that tends to stick to the sides and bottom, so don't be stingy with your greasing or you'll regret it later. 😉
You can make mini-muffins with this batter if you want. A typical mini-muffin pan will make 24 mini muffins out of 12 regular muffin-cup's worth of batter.
Gosh, I can't seem to get that out in a less-confusing way.
Let's try an equation.
12 regular muffins=24 mini muffins.
Yes, that's much better.
(that's a mini-muffin tin. But because I am brain-dead and didn't put anything in the photo for comparison, it's mini-ness is less than obvious.)
Bake the muffins for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Run a knife around the edge of the muffin tins to loosen muffins. Remove from the pan and serve, or let them cool on a wire rack.
Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
Printable Lemon Poppyseed Muffin recipe
2 ½ cups flour
1 ½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 small package instant lemon pudding
¼ cup poppyseed
½ cup shortening
¼ cup butter, softened
¾ cup milk
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, pudding and poppyseed in a large bowl. Add crisco and softened butter and mix until blended. Combine milk, eggs, and vanilla together and add to dry ingredients. Mix until smooth.
Spoon into greased muffins cups and bake in a preheated 350 ° F oven for 15-20 minutes (10-12 minutes for mini muffins). Remove muffins from tins and cool on a wire rack.
Today's 365 post: When eating leftovers is no hardship
Are those Valentine's flowers in the background?
I was wondering if you stored the poppy seeds in the refrigerator or freezer, would they last longer?
Oh yeah! We are big fans of lemon poppy seed quick bread at our house, but I love the idea of making them into muffins. This recipe sounds so yummy! I baked your Oatmeal Cinnamon Bread yesterday, and it was DIVINE :D! The kid's consumed one whole loaf with milk for their snack (of course, there were several neighbor kids there to "help"). We loved it so much I added it into my blog post today ( I linked back to Frugal Girl and gave proper credit...you are my baking hero). Thanks for your great recipes!
So excited to try these!!! I am the "afraid of yeast baking" group and I will definitely try these... hopefully soon because I am getting hungry looking at them!
There is a little restaurant in Washington, NC, called 'The Meeting Place.' They serve the best little lemon poppy seed muffins. They are one of my favorite things to make and are usually a crowd favorite. Thanks for posting the recipe and reminding me that I haven't made these for awhile!
Funny - I actually made a batch of lemon poppyseed muffins on Monday night (for the first time ever)! I'll admit they were from a box mix (I know - a sin at TheFrugalGirl 🙂 ) but they still taste super yummy! They came with a glaze packet to drizzle over the top.
Perhaps the zest from a lemon and maybe a tablespoon of the juice would ramp up the lemonyness (yeah, I just made that up).
@Monica - Storing your poppy seeds in the freezer will totally keep them fresher longer.
How in the world did you know I was wondering how long to bake mini muffins??? Man-oh-man, but you are good, Kristen! Thanks! 🙂
Kristin and Monica,
Yes, poppy seeds do not keep as well as most spices and dried herbs and because I do not do a great deal of baking, I do keep them (as well as my black sesame seeds) in the freezer...it works great!!
could you be more specific about the "one small package of lemon pudding"? i'm not really sure what sizes they come in in the first place...thank you!
I don't have one handy, but I think the small ones are 3 ounces? Lemon pudding mix doesn't usually come in larger packages, at least not that I've seen.
And I have a question too: is the 15-20 minutes for both full sized AND mini-muffins? I normally bake regular sized muffins around 18-20 minutes and mini-muffins only around 10 minutes.
We LOVE lemon poppy seed items in my house. I'm going to try to pick up some pudding today.
Oh, man...I really AM brain-dead today! No, the mini-muffins should only be baked about 10 minutes or so. Off to edit the post.
Not brain-dead, just BUSY, I would guess. Glad to see that I'm not totally crazy, though. 🙂
Ooh, I love love love lemon poppyseed muffins. I haven't made them because my husband hates lemon anything and I can't be trusted with an entire batch of lemon muffins (just like I can't be trusted making banana chocolate chip muffins late at night 😉 ). I'm going to try these and see if my kids like them as much as I do. Thanks for the inspiration!
Made them today and they were fantastic! I did have to cook mine a little bit longer (mini muffins) but it may just be my oven. I used silicon mini muffin trays and they popped right out. Highly recommend them. Thanks for the great recipe, this one's a keeper!
I doubled this recipe to make 3 loaf pans of lemon poppy seed bread, and baked them for (approximately) an hour. Delicious! (Thank you for a recipe that doesn't use cake mix.)