Sweet
Enormous lemon and poppy seed muffins
Sky-high, sour-cream-tender lemon muffins studded with poppy seeds and soaked with a warm lemon-sugar syrup. Big enough to be a meal on their own — and I mean it.
Use half a jumbo (Texas-size) muffin tin — six holes only, filled to the very top with a mound over the rim. That's how you get bakery-style domes.
Method
- 01
Heat the oven to 220°C fan. Line 8 jumbo muffin holes generously with paper cases (or use tulip liners — they hold the mound).
- 02
In one bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and poppy seeds.
- 03
In a larger bowl, rub the lemon zest into the sugar with your fingertips until it smells like a lemon grove. Whisk in the eggs, then the sour cream, oil, lemon juice and vanilla.
- 04
Fold the dry into the wet with a spatula until just combined — a few streaks of flour are welcome. Do not stir it smooth or the muffins go tough.
- 05
Divide between the cases, mounding them right up over the rim. This is what gives you the enormous bakery dome. Scatter a few extra poppy seeds on top.
- 06
Bake at 220°C for 8 minutes to force the dome, then drop to 180°C and bake for a further 14–16 minutes, until deep golden and a skewer comes out clean.
- 07
While the muffins bake, warm the syrup sugar and lemon juice in a small pan until the sugar dissolves — do not boil.
- 08
The minute the muffins come out, brush the tops generously with the warm syrup and let it soak in. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then lift onto a rack.
- 09
Dust with icing sugar and scatter with extra lemon zest just before serving. Split, buttered, with a cappuccino: a meal on its own.
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