Surprising fact about me:
I love chocolate.
Oh wait, that’s not surprising at all, is it? Here’s something that is surprising: Every once in a while, I crave something other than chocolate. Yesterday afternoon, for example, I was craving… lemon poppy seed?
Okay, who are you, and what have you done with Katie?
The problem is, there are no poppy seed recipes in my archives.
This was a job for my good friends over at the Candle Cafe. I’ve owned their cookbook for years, and you know how many recipes I’ve made from it? Zero.
I used to be so bad about buying cookbooks. I’d flip through the recipes, bookmark pages, and then never make any. Therefore, I’ve forced myself to completely stop buying cookbooks in the first place. Before I purchase new ones, I ought to show some love to those I already own!
So yesterday, I dug out the Candle Cafe Cookbook and assembled ingredients for their lemon poppy seed muffins. However, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I am incapable of following a recipe. True to form, I abandoned CC’s recipe halfway through and did my own thing.
Where’s the 12th mini muffin? In mah belly!
Lil Lemon Poppies
(Adapted from the Candle Cafe Cookbook)
- very scant 1 tbsp poppy seeds
- 1 tsp grated lemon zest
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 c milk of choice
- 1 c spelt flour (or white, ww pastry, or even try gluten-free mix!)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/4 c butter-type spread (full-fat), applesauce, oil, or a combo (if using oil or applesauce, add 1/16 tsp salt)
- 2 tbsp sugar (I used less than 2tbsp because I used stevia)
- 1/2 tsp powdered ginger (You can omit this.)
Preheat oven to 355 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix liquid ingredients (and poppy seeds), then combine and stir until just mixed. Don’t overmix. Pour into mini liners or spray a mini muffin tin with oil, and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Makes 12 cute lil mini muffins.
If desired, you can top them with my Easiest-Ever Icing.
But they really don’t even need a glaze; these babies are perfect on their own.
The bake sale is over!
For the incredible results: Bake-Sale Results.
I know a lot of you want to know more details about the sale, and those of you who bid are chomping (literally!) at the bit to know exactly when you’ll get your delicious yummies. Please be patient with me; I have a terrifying amount of emails in my inbox at the moment, and there’s no way I can get to them all today. Please remember that I have other obligations; running the bake sale is not my job.
I’ll publish a big “bake sale wrap up” post tomorrow, listing the amount we raised and giving instructions on what to do next. (I’ll also be sending emails to the winners in the next few days; as I said, please be patient!)
Question of the Day:
Do you bookmark recipes from cookbooks or blogs, then never make any?
Or are you the kind of person who sees a recipe (either in a cookbook or a blog) and immediately goes out and makes it that night? And can you follow a recipe to a tee, or do you improvise as you go along?
I grew up eating these all the time and I was so excited to see this recipe! Next time I will add MORE lemon juice/zest and I WONT put in the powdered ginger it made the muffins taste a little strange… thanks so much Katie!!
Katie, these are fabulous! The tsp. of ginger is ingenious. Adds a complexity to what could be an otherwise ordinary muffin. I am consistently having the problem of the sinking in the middle. It’s no big deal, except for appearance sake. My family doesn’t care and gobbles these down. As a matter of fact, I’m eating one now, hot of the oven, to be sure I get one. 🙂 Any ideas, why they’re sinking? I am baking in a large muffin tin because of lack of a mini-tin. Other than that and using coconut sugar instead (but I had the same result happen with agave), I’ve made no modifications. I’m puzzled. AWESOME recipe! LOVE your blog. I tell the world about you. 🙂
Unfortunately changing the muffin tin size is a modification, and is almost guaranteed to be the reason yours are sinking.
Just made these! I used spelt flour and used 2 parts applesauce/1 part earth balance. I would definitely add more lemon next time… not quite lemony enough for me! Otherwise a great recipe!
Hi Katie! i wanted to know do i have to use non dairy milk??
You can use milk of your choice!
I just calculated this WHOLE recipe containing 533 calories! so one would be about 45 calories 🙂 yay!
hello katie 🙂
yesterday i made mini heart shaped muffins for valentine’s day and their were sooo yummy ! even my mom and grandma who think that there is no good cake without eggs really liked them! thanks for the recipe 🙂
Hey Katie!
So I LOVE lemon poppy seed muffins and was SO excited to make these, but when we made them (we used wheat flour and applesauce) they came out not lemony enough, not very sweet, and very dry 🙁 We ended up throwing them away. I scrolled through every post and see that others used wheat flour and applesauce and they loved them. We tested our baking soda and baking powder and both work, so I’m wondering if you have any idea as to what happened? We’re so sad!
-Dana and Rachael
Zest a whole lemn if you want more lemony flavor. That’s what I did. Also, I’ve done it with both butter and applesauce, and I can say that the butter version is soooooo much better and fluffier and moist. The fat makes a difference! Coconut oil works too. Or maybe just a fat source in general. Maybe you could do some oil or butteand some applesauce if you don’t want all the fat?
Umm… one word. Pinterest. Recipe overload.
I made these this morning and they came out good. We used applesauce and whole wheat pastry flour, which made them a little dense and not as pretty looking, but they tasted great.
these r soooooo good. i subbed sesame seed cause i didnt have poppyseed. these remiind me of the 1s i would get at tim hortens. (thats a coffee shop in canada,where i live.(i think their planning 2 open in the us.))