Blood Orange and Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Sometimes an ingredient shortage can work in your favor. For want of a few more blood oranges, some Meyer lemons were used, and born out of the uncertainty of that unusual pairing, some poppy seeds were added. Thus, a brand new muffin emerged, and a very delicious one at that.

My intention was simply to make another batch of blood orange muffins, based on my very slight adaptation of a recipe I’ve used before. I started squeezing the blood oranges, noting how much more juice I was getting from each one since I was using a plastic juicer as opposed to just squeezing by hand. But then when I had squeezed the last one out, I looked at my measuring cup and I only had just over 3/4 of a cup. Disaster!

I didn’t want to throw away the juice, or risk having it go bad if I stored it, since I didn’t know when I’d be able to get more blood oranges. So I got creative: I decided to top off it off with Meyer lemon juice. Risky, I know. Bold, even. I am normally neither risky nor bold, but this was a baking emergency. I took out the lemons, and squeezed out enough to make a full cup of juice.

Meyer Lemon Yogurt Muffins

These were…meh. The flavor came through nicely after the muffins had been sitting for a day, and the texture settled a little, but spectacular they were not. I was going to make mini muffins as the recipe suggested, but I had these beautiful, spring-themed muffin papers that Marcie bought for me and I thought lemon […]

Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Oatmeal Muffins

These muffins surprised me. The batter didn’t seem as thick as it should be, and the night I made them, I tried one and it stuck so much to the paper that it wasn’t worth the effort of prying it loose. But then I tried one the next morning for breakfast, and it was actually […]

Mini Meyer Lemon Bundt Cakes

These are tiny sweet lemony bites from heaven. Oh my. I didn’t even know I owned a mini bundt pan until about a month ago. I’m not 100% sure where I got it, but my money’s on it being a freebie from my friend Scratchy’s days at the Martha Stewart show. And what a way […]

Meyer Lemon Pound Cake

I changed this recipe up a fair bit, and it paid off. Dave is normally immune to the charms of the endless stream of baked goods that makes its way through our kitchen, but this one hooked him. He’s even suggesting that there might not be any left to bring to my hungry co-workers tomorrow. I’ll take that as a compliment to the awesome power of Meyer lemon pound cake.

Meyer Lemon Spice Bread

I confess I find the name of this bread somewhat misleading. It’s not really about the lemons; this bread is all about the spice. A little too much spice, I think, which is a very big statement coming from this particular spice lover. That said, I might take another crack at this, because I love […]

Meyer Lemon Madeleines

They have a bit of crispness on the outside with a cakey texture on the inside, they’re sweet from sugar and vanilla but get tang and zing from the lemons. I think Proust might remember these too.

Meyer Lemon Tea Bread

This lemon tea bread took some doing. It’s not that it was hard to make, it’s that I had one of those rare, completely unnecessary baking disasters, and I wasn’t able to pull it together enough to give it another try until the next day. I’m glad I did, though; it was completely worth it. […]

Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

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 […]