I had a big bowl of aromatic lemons sitting in the kitchen. Last Sunday morning, upon discovering that there was no bread in the house, I decided to turn my kitchen into an impromptu bakery and make Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. Surfing the web for some easy recipes, I nearly died at how much butter was used in all the recipes. And then I found Sara’s Blog who had tweaked the recipe to be low(er) fat by substituting all that butter with a combination of yogurt and canola oil. The result was a lighter muffin without the guilt trip. However, the brillance of this recipe is in rubbing the sugar with the lemon zest infusing the lemon’s subtle perfume into the mix. Very yummy with an espresso.

For the muffins:
2/3 cup sugar
zest and juice of 2 small lemons
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup non fat yogurt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons poppyseeds
For the glaze:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Center a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 400F. Prepare your muffin pan or whatever muffin cooking apparatus you will be using, and place on a baking sheet.
In a large bowl, rub together the sugar and lemon zest until the sugar is moist and you can smell the lemon.
Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In another bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the yogurt, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, and canola oil until well blended.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and with a rubber spatula gently and quickly stir to blend. Do not over-mix. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly in 12 muffin cups, I like to use an ice cream scoop to measure this out.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool for about 5 minutes, and then remove them from the molds and let cool to room temperature.
To make the glaze, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar with 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Add more lemon juice as needed to get it to the consistency so you can drizzle the glaze over the muffins.