Lemon and poppy seed muffins with lemon syrup
I got the urge to bake today and had a flick through my limitless supply of recipe books looking for a recipe to inspire me. When that didn’t happen I had a look in the cupboards and fridge to see what I had around. I felt like making muffins but wasn’t sure of what flavouring to go with and when I saw the lemons in my fruit bowl it was decided – lemon and poppy seed muffins. I love the refreshing tartness of lemons. They immediately remind me of summer and with the overcast weather outside I thought this was the perfect remedy. As I didn’t find a recipe for what I wanted I decided to make something up and see what happened. Whilst I do this all the time with dinner, I hadn’t ever just baked without using a recipe, at least as the basis. Unfortunately, the muffins turned out a bit firmer that I had hoped, nice and filling for breakfast though, which is what I had made them for on those work mornings when I would rather sleep in than get up and make breakfast. To intensify the lemon flavour I decided to top the muffins with a lemon syrup. Mmmm. Here is the recipe.
250g flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
150g caster sugar
1 180ml tub of sour cream
1 tablespoon of poppy seeds
125 ml of vegetable oil
2 eggs
the zest of 1 large lemon
the juice of 1 large lemon
1. Preheat the oven to 200 and line a 12 tin muffin tray with paper cases.
2. Add dry ingredients to a bowl and mix to combine.
3. Add eggs, sour cream and vegetable oil to the dry ingredients and mix together.
4. Spoon into the muffin cases.
5. Bake for 20 minutes and remove to a cooling rack.
Syrup
3/4 cup of lemon juice
1/4 cup of sugar
1. Place the ingredients into a saucepan on the hot plate on a medium heat.
2. As the syrup starts to bubble reduce the heat.
3. Cook until the syrup reduces to about half it’s original quantity.
4. Pierce the tops of the muffins in several places with a skewer (this will help the syrup penetrate) and pour the syrup over each muffin.
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