Just Baking

We make four different muffins at work, and they typically never change, day in and day out. When I was asked to replace two of them, I was more than happy to. I love a good lemon-flavored muffin. The only problem was that I have never found a good lemon-poppy muffin recipe. So, I took the recipe for the muffin batter we use at work and changed it a lot.

I think every serious baker should challenge him-/herself to messing with the formulas. If you’re looking to challenge yourself or to improve your skills, you should do this. With an understanding of how the basic ingredients work in a recipe, you can do some tweaking to customize flavors and textures. Here, I mention every change I made to the recipe, and the outcome. I hope I inspire you to tweak some recipes of your own.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins 

The original recipe has been broken down for home use.

1 pound (4 sticks) margarine
2 cups white sugar
1 cup (about 4 large) eggs
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
8 cups all-purpose flour
20 ounces sour cream

Cream the margarine and sugar, about 5 minutes; slowly pour in the eggs till well mixed in.

Mix all the dry ingredients - salt, baking powder, baking soda, and flour.
Add half the dry ingredients.  Mix till just blended in.  Add half the sour cream, mix till just blended in, then add the rest of the dry ingredients. Then, add the rest of the sour cream.

Variation 1 

Now the first change I made was replacing the margarine with real butter. I hate margarine, but that is what the bakery chooses to use. Then, I added 1/4 cup of lemon juice, and omitted the sour cream completely. I made lemon curd and added that in place of the sour cream. Then, I added 2 and 1/2 ounces of poppy seeds.

I added the lemon juice, in part, to add more lemon flavor but also because the poppy seeds would dry out the muffins even more otherwise. I wanted to add lemon zest but had no zester to zest the lemons with. Make sure you toast the poppy seeds. Toast at 325 degrees till they smell fragrant, about 10 to 15 minutes.

This muffin was okay, about like all the rest I have tried - nothing too special.

Variation 2 

My next change was to replace the butter completely with oil, increase the lemon juice to 1/2 a cup, and bump up the amount of lemon curd. Now, the muffin was getting someplace. It was lemony and moist, but it was also a tad oily.

Variation 3 

Here is the next version, and this is the recipe we’re going with for now, because everyone loved it so much.

1 1/4 cup oil
4 ounces butter, softened
3 cups white sugar
1 1/4 cups (5 large) eggs
3/4 cup lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon plus 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
6 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 pounds lemon curd (recipe follows)
3 1/2 ounces poppy seeds
Zest of 2 lemons

Lemon Curd: 

2  large eggs
8  yolks
1 1/8 cups  white sugar
3/4 cup lemon juice
2 ounces unsalted butter

For lemon curd: Mix everything except butter and put over double boiler; cook over medium heat.

Cook till the temperature hits at least 165 degrees F but does not go above 180 degrees F (or the mixture will break).
Remove from heat and stir in butter until melted. Then, put over ice bath till cold; store covered in fridge till ready to use.

Future Variations 

Even though these muffins were a success with everyone, I still plan to tweak them more. I plan to try adding some brown sugar, no more than 1/4 cup. I do not want the muffins to get too dark or lose the lemon flavor. I plan to decrease the butter, but only by half, so the muffins are moister, yet not oily. Then, I plan to melt the butter. This will avoid the creaming process, and will make the muffin a little denser. After that, I will go with the one I decide to be the best. Have fun tweaking formulas!