I had high hopes.
I have been looking for Meyer lemons ever since I first heard of them about a year ago, and this weekend as Juliet & I cruised the aisles at Trader Joe’s, I found them at last.
I bought two bags. Then I came home and combed the web looking for reasonably healthy recipes. I thought this one for Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins was perfect, if I swapped out half the butter for yogurt. I was wrong.
I started by attempting to cream together the butter, sugar, eggs, and yogurt.
It didn’t go so well. I’m used to a texture difference when I use yogurt, and I’ve never had a problem with it before, but something was just OFF this time.
I forged onward. I added the lemon juice next, and the lemon zest, although the recipe didn’t actually say to add the zest. It said I’d need zest, so I zested, but then didn’t include it anywhere in the directions. I put it in anyway.
The texture didn’t really improve.
I was supposed to just add the dry ingredients to the big bowl, but I whisked them together first, separately: whole wheat white flour, baking powder, salt, and poppy seeds.
And then I added them to the first mixture.
I stirred just enough to combine, without overmixing, and got a very traditional-looking batter. I was relieved.
I started to get nervous again while I was filling the muffin cups. I was about halfway through the tray when I realized I was not going to have enough batter for 12 muffins, unless I made shrimpy little sad ones, which did not match the lovely photos in the recipe I was using. In the end, I got nine.
After baking for about 18 minutes, they looked pretty good. They smelled good too.
Sadly, they’re just not that great. They’re not very fluffy, they have a nice tang but nothing texture-wise to recommend them. I was sad that I wasted my precious Meyer lemons on these, and I think if I try for lemon poppy muffins again, I’ll use the recipe I already love and just swap out the lemons.
Not quite a muffin fail, but definitely not a success. I guess that’s why I call this blog Adventures In Baking. Sometimes, they’re misadventures.
(Things got worse, after that, but I’ll save that for the next entry.)
MEYER LEMON POPPY SEED MUFFINS — maybe you’ll have better luck
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