Better than Bakery Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
If you think you need to head to the bakery for the best lemon poppy seed muffins, just wait till you try these! These homemade lemon poppy seed muffins are ultra moist, bursting with lemon flavor, and have those perfect, bakery style, tall round tops. With a ton of lemon zest and a game changing tip to level up the lemon flavor (hint: infusing the hot butter with the lemon extract), these muffins are tangy and have the perfect amount of poppy seeds. They are topped with a lemon glaze while hot to keep them super moist!
One bite of these lemon poppy seed muffins and you’ll never go back to your local bakery. They are moist, full of flavor, and topped with a sweet lemon glaze when hot to give them an upgrade. As a trained pastry chef, I’m showing you some top tricks you can do to make better than bakery lemon poppy seed muffins at home!
Let’s start with making the most out of the lemon flavor. You’ll use both lemon zest and lemon extract to make the lemon super flavorful. Lemon juice is lovely but honestly doesn’t compare to lemon extract.
Extracts are concentrated flavor so you only need a little bit, but it packs a way bigger punch than (lemon) juice.
To take the lemon flavor to an even higher level (gasp! is there such a thing?) you’ll add the lemon extract to the hot melted butter, instead of into the liquid ingredients at the end. The warm hot butter infuses with the lemon to make it more lemony.
Another way to make sure the flavor really comes through is to make sure to zest your lemon on top of the sugar. I do this same technique with my lemon curd muffins, and always zest on top of sugar in my triple lemon muffins.
This makes sure you catch all of the oil from the lemon zest, and don’t lose any by zesting in a smaller bowl and then transferring. Mix the lemon with the sugar to make lemon sugar and now the sugar is more infused with lemon too!
How to make them
Muffins are super easy to make because all you need to do is:
- Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl
- Mix the wet ingredients in one bowl
- Combine the dry into the wet and mix lightly
Tada you’re done!
All muffin recipes are made this way because we want to limit the amount of gluten development to make sure they have a light and airy texture.
The less steps, the less mixing, and the less time the gluten has to hang out and make more of itself.
This is called the muffin method. If you see a muffin recipe that calls for creaming butter and sugar, it might actually come out more like cake and not muffin-y because you’re using the creaming method to incorporate a lot of air.
Which brings me too…
Don’t over mix!
You want to make sure not to over mix the batter. Over mixing allows the gluten to develop more and we just learned you don’t want to do that. It’s the number one reason why your muffins can come out dense, dry, and thick.
Don’t mix too much. The batter should be lumpy and thick, not thin and smooth.
Mixing the dry into the wet is easier and has less of a risk of over mixing because the ingredients are easier to mix in. You’re also not wondering if theres any flour left on the bottom of the bowl.
Please follow the instructions listed on the recipe card below for the step by step process.
Moist Muffins
Theres a few things at play here keeping the muffins moist. For the batter I used a combination of eggs, oil, butter, milk, and greek yogurt. This combo keeps the muffins moist, even on day 2!
When I tested them without yogurt, or without the milk, they just were not as moist.
What also keeps them moist is the lemon glaze that is brushed on top of the muffins while they are still hot. Typically I tell people to wait until their desserts are cool so that the icing doesn’t melt into it. But thats exactly what we want this time.
When the glaze melts into the muffins, it keeps it extra moist and soft. As soon as those muffins come out of the oven, be ready with your glaze!
Baking for tall domed tops
Getting the classic high rounded tops is the sign of a bakery muffin, but with these tips you can make bakery style muffins at home:
- Bake the muffins on a high heat at 425°F for the first 7 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350°F and continue baking. The high heat makes the muffin puff up at the top creating the dome, then the lower temperature bakes the center of the muffin.
- Let the batter rest for 20-30 minutes or even overnight. This allows the gluten to relax a bit and for all the dry ingredients to soak up more moisture which makes a thicker batter and rounder tops. I do this maybe 20% of the time because I am impatient.
- Optional- bake in every other muffin hole. This means you’ll need two muffin tins to bake 12 muffins. The extra space allows for the heat to circulate better in the pan to help the muffins rise.
Lemon Glaze
Make the glaze when theres a couple minutes left on your timer. Then brush it immediately on top of the muffins when they come out of the oven. The glaze will seep into the hot muffins keeping them moist for longer. It will also create this sweet crust on top of the muffin that adds another layer of texture and flavor!
All you need is powdered sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest (optional), and a little bit of milk. You can leave the milk out and go all out lemon juice too. Mix these ingredients together (honestly I dont even measure anymore, I just eyeball it) and you have the perfect glaze.
To eye ball this like I do (there is a list of exact ingredients dont worry) just know that if the glaze is too thick, add a little bit more lemon juice, if it gets too thin, add some more powdered sugar until you get a pourable consistency. Start with a 1/2 cup or so powdered sugar and just a tablespoon or so of liquid, then go from there.
How to store
These are best eaten in the first 2 days. For leftover, store them in a cake dome or in another container or even a zip top bag. The glaze will seep completely into the muffin if stored in an airtight container.
Better than Bakery Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup white sugar, 200g
- 2 tbsp lemon zest
- 3 cups all purpose flour, 360g
- 2 tbsp poppy seeds
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 tsp lemon extract
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil, or other neutral oil
- 1/2 cup whole milk, or other milk
- 1/2 cup greek yogurt, or sour cream
- 3 eggs, large
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425° F and line a 12 cup muffin tip with muffin liners.
- Take out 2 medium sized bowls. In one bowl, add the 1 cup sugar and 2 tbsp lemon zest and mix well together to infuse the sugar with the lemon. Then add in the 3 cups flour, 2 tbsp poppy seeds, 3 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp kosher salt. Mix lightly with a whisk.
- In the second bowl, add the 4 tbsp butter and microwave for 30 seconds at a time until fully melted. Add 1/2 tsp lemon extract and mix lightly to infuse.
- Then add in the 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup greek yogurt, and 3 eggs. Whisk well.
- All at once, add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Using a large spatula, lightly and gently fold in the flour taking care not to over mix or mix too hard. You want the flour to JUST mix in till there are no mare large streaks. The batter will be lumpy.
- Let the batter rest in the bowl for 30 minutes or up to overnight.
- Using an ice cream scoop for accuracy, scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin all the way to the top.
- Bake for 7 minutes on 425, then lower the temperature to 350°F and continue to bake for another 13-15 minutes.
- While the muffins are baking, make the lemon glaze.
- Immediately when the muffins come out of the oven, brush the tops with the glaze.
- Cool the muffins for 10 minutes in the tray, then cool completely on a wire rack.
