The two lonely lemons that were rolling around the drawer in my fridge met their life’s purpose in these delicious muffins! Zested and juiced, they gave a great drenching of lemon flavor to these treats. The zest was stirred in with the sour cream and the juice was used to make a syrup. Soaking the muffins with a bit of syrup is a sophisticated extra step that elevates the flavor and insures that they will stay moist for days. This really is a great recipe, I won a blue ribbon at the fair with these muffins a few years ago.
I decided that sour cream is a baking panacea, a cure all! Using it in a recipe means that you can abuse the batter a bit and still get great results. That sour cream keeps the muffins tender and moist and adds all around deliciousness. I felt like I over mixed this batch of muffins but that sour cream made sure that they were moist and tender. They stayed soft and completely enjoyable and every last one was hastily consumed! The recipe comes from a book called Baking by Flavor, written by Lisa Yockelson.
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 3/4 cup plus one tablespoon sour cream, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 large egg
- 2 1/2 teaspoons of lemon zest (from about 2 lemons)
- **for the lemon syrup
- 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
Instructions
- Line 12 muffin cups with muffin papers. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl , whisk together the butter, sour cream, milk, egg, and lemon juice. With a wide spatula, quickly stir the butter mixture into the flour mixture just until incorporated. Fill the muffin cups using a 1/4 cup spring-release scoop. Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes until they are golden brown on top and they spring back when touched lightly.
- While the muffins are baking, prepare the syrup. In a small saucepan stir together the lemon juice and sugar. Bring this to a boil and boil one minute.
- Once the muffins are out of the oven, spoon about 2 teaspoons of the hot syrup onto the hot muffins.
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