Muffins Went Rogue

I started out with the full intention of making lemon poppy seed muffins.  While I was getting the ingredients ready, my eyes caught the 'playing around' section of the recipe which recommended dropping a teaspoon of jam in between the muffin batter.  I thought why not ? Seems like a terrific idea to jazz up a muffin.

Unfortunately (there seem to be a lot of unfortunate events in my baking lately), overzealous me dropped more than a teaspoon of jam, and my muffins ended up bleeding.  The tall muffin pan that I used also didn't help - The surface of the muffin cups was smaller than any regular muffin cups, and so when I dropped the jam onto the batter, it was all askew.  So that's how I went rogue on my lemon poppy seed muffins, and as a result, they ended up bleeding black cherry jam :).

It is a good thing that the coordinates of the jam do not affect the texture nor taste of the muffins.  Phew. I did not have any back-up breakfast food for Little Missy.

So, imagine if you will – a still-warm-from-the-oven muffin enclosing (or not) a dollop of sweet black cherry jam, drizzled with lemony glaze.  Now, this is just the type of muffin that I look forward to wake up to.  I urge you to make some of this, your audience will be so thankful, trust me :)  Oh yes, I highly recommend that you do not omit the lemon glaze, as it really brings out the lemon flavor of the muffins without going over the top.

This is yet again another muffin recipe that I had adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours.  But really, I make no apologies for the recent plethora of recipes from her book.  If you must know, I have bookmarked so many pages in that book, as Greenspan has a knack for making everything look and sound yummy, yet simple enough to make.

You will need:

Muffins:
1/2 cup sugar
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
115 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 tbsp poppy seeds (which I omitted when I went rogue)
Adequate jam of your choice (I used black cherry jam)

Lemon glaze:
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Preparation:

To prepare the muffins:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 200 deg C. Spray your muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray or line the cups with paper liners. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

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 a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to combine. Do not overmix the batter – a few lumps are ok. Stir in the poppy seeds.

Fill the muffin cups halfway with the batter, spoon a teaspoon of puree on top, then fill the remaining space with batter.

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 to cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold. Cool completely on the rack before icing.

To prepare the glaze:
Put the icing sugar in a small bowl and add about 1 1/2 tbsp of the lemon juice. Stir with a spoon to moisten the sugar, then add enough additional lemon juice, a dribble at a time, to get an icing that is thin enough to drizzle from the tip of the spoon. Drizzle lines of icing over the tops of the muffins.

Makes 12 muffins.