Poppy seeds and lemon is one of my favorite combinations when it comes to cakes, cookies and muffins. This recipe for lemon poppy seed muffins with sourdough therefore contains a whole lemon (zest and juice). The sourdough ensures that the muffins stay fresh and soft for a long time and gives them additional flavor. Unlike many other sourdough recipes, the batter is quick and easy to make and does not need to ferment before baking (but it can). As the dough also contains baking powder, you can also use sourdough discard and leftover sourdough for this recipe.
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Freezing and defrosting muffins
The sourdough muffins are great for baking in advance and freezing. To do this, allow the muffins to cool completely after baking, wrap them airtight and freeze them. You can put the rhubarb muffins in the fridge overnight to defrost. You can re-heat them briefly in the oven before serving.
You’ll need these ingredients
- Sourdough starter or sourdough discard: Because this recipe contains an additional leavening agent, it is not important how strong your sourdough starter is. It works just as well with freshly fed sourdough as with starter that has been waiting in the fridge for a week. I feed my sourdough starter with roughly equal parts flour and water. I use a mixture of wheat and rye flour. If you feed your sourdough in a different ratio, you will probably need to adjust the proportion of water in this recipe.
- Wheat flour: I used all-purpose flour or wheat flour 405 for the lemon poppy seed muffins. You can also replace some of the flour with wholemeal flour or spelt flour. Wholegrain flour can absorb more water than white flour, so you may need to add more liquid to the dough.
- Sugar and salt for flavour.
- Lemons: For extra fruity lemon muffins, I have used the juice and zest of one lemon in this recipe. I would therefore recommend using organic lemons and washing the zest with warm water before zesting.
- Eggs
- Butter (soft).
- Baking powder: If you want to use less leavening agent, you can replace the baking powder with half the amount of baking soda. Unlike baking powder, baking soda requires an acid to react. This can be apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, buttermilk, yoghurt or even sourdough.
In three steps: How to make sourdough muffins
Mix the dough
Beat the soft butter with the sugar, eggs, lemon juice and lemon zest until fluffy. Then stir in the sourdough starter. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and poppy seeds. Mix the dry ingredients with the liquid ingredients.
If you have used small eggs or lemons or your starter is rather firm, you may need to add a few sips of milk until your batter has the right consistency. As with a classic pound cake, the batter should be soft and creamy, but not run off the spoon.
Bake the lemon poppy seed muffins
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.
Grease a muffin tin* or line with paper liners and carefully pour two to three tablespoons of batter into each mould.
Bake the lemon poppy seed muffins for about 20 minutes until they pass the toothpick test.
Decorating
For the icing, gradually mix the powdered sugar with the lemon juice until you have a thick icing. Spread the icing over the warm* muffins.
Helpful tools – My recommendations
✨ The links with an star* are affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and buy something, I get a small commission and you support my work (thanks for that 🧡). This does not change the price for you. You can find more information on privacy policy here.✨
- A grain mill* for freshly ground wholemeal flour.
- A Danish Whisk* – especially if you don’t use a kitchen machine. This allows you to mix your ingredients without the whole dough sticking to the spoon.
- A kitchen scale*.
- A cooling rack* for bread, rolls and waffles.
- A muffin tin*.
You can find more product recommendations here.
Similar recipes
If you’re looking for more recipes for sourdough muffins, then take a look at these soft rhubarb muffins. If you want to try more recipes with citrus fruits, you might find what you’re looking for in this lemon cake or the orange cardamom shortbread.
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Recipe: Sourdough Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Ingredients
- 85 g butter
- 100 g sugar
- 175 g sourdough starter or discard
- 175 g all-purpose flour or type 405 wheat flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 2 Eggs
- 1 organic lemons juice and zest
- 1 tbsp. poppy seeds
- 1 pinch of salt
- milk as needed
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.
- Beat the soft butter with the sugar, eggs, lemon juice and lemon zest until fluffy. Then stir in the sourdough starter.
- Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and poppy seeds. Mix the dry ingredients with the liquid ingredients.
- If you have used small eggs or lemons or your starter is rather firm, you may need to add a few sips of milk until your batter has the right consistency. As with a classic pound cake, the batter should be soft and creamy, but not run off the spoon.
- Grease a muffin tin* or line with paper liners and carefully pour two to three tablespoons of batter into each mould.
- Bake the lemon poppy seed muffins for about 20 minutes until they pass the toothpick test.
- Optional: For the icing, gradually mix the powdered sugar with the lemon juice until you have a thick icing. Spread the icing over the warm* muffins.
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