Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins #MuffinMonday

Meyer lemons and lemon yogurt make a beautiful rich batter for these Meyer Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. Delicious sunshine in a muffin cup!

Who can resist the sweet and sour combination of lemon and mandarin orange that created the hybrid Meyer lemon? 

Last year when I was here in Providence visiting my daughters for spring break, I baked a beautiful (if I do say so myself – but you can go and judge for yourself) sweet bread loaf with lemons and poppy seeds. The weather was warmer at this time a year ago but the fresh, bright flavor of lemons is always cheerful and warming. Especially Meyer lemons. 

Weather reports are promising a chance of snow for the next two days– that’s right, snow again at the end of March, after the supposed start of spring! – so I baked muffins with the same flavors as last year’s bread. And added a lemony glaze, which makes them extra cheerful. If we can’t be warm and sunshiny outside, at least we can be inside. Snow, pfft. I laugh in your face.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
2/3 cup or 130g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons poppy seeds (plus a couple of pinches more for decorating if desired)
Grated zest and juice of 1 Meyer lemon (Mine were small so one yielded only 1 1/2 tablespoons juice.)
3/4 cup or 185g lemon yogurt
1/4 cup or 60ml milk
2 large eggs
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Optional glaze – juice of one small Meyer lemon
About 4-5 heaping tablespoons powdered sugar

To decorate, if desired:
The glaze
Extra poppy seeds
Zest of one Meyer Lemon

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Butter your muffin tin or line it with paper liners.

Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, poppy seeds and salt to a large mixing bowl.

Grate in the Meyer lemon zest and mix. Juice your lemon.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, yogurt, juice and melted butter.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until just mixed through.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cups in the pan.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden. Allow the muffins to cool for a few minutes then remove the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.  I don’t have a wire rack in the house where I’m staying so I just used the top of the gas range. Worked perfectly.

If you want to add glaze, zest your second Meyer lemon and squeeze out the juice.  Add powdered sugar a couple of tablespoons at a time and stir well, until the glaze is a good drizzling consistency.

When your muffins are cool, drizzle on the glaze and sprinkle the muffins with a little lemon zest and a few poppy seeds each.

Enjoy!

Matcha Muffins #MuffinMonday

These tender muffins are made with matcha or green tea powder, which can make muffins dry, but the buttermilk and butter add all the moisture needed to ensure great muffins.  

Happy Muffin Monday and happy St. Patrick’s Day from chilly Michigan! I’m visiting a dear friend who recently realized her life's dream of opening a beautiful tea shop, so it is most appropriate that today I offer you a muffin made with green tea powder, also known as matcha. I had the wonderful idea that the matcha would make green muffins so they would also be appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day, but no such luck. (Thank goodness I also decided to add some colored sugar sprinkles or there wouldn’t be any green at all.) But green tea powder is supposed to be good for you and the muffins are delicious, so let’s focus on that.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 100g light brown sugar
2 teaspoons matcha powder
1/2 cup or 115g butter, melted then cooled
1 egg
1 cup or 240ml buttermilk

For decorating: 3-4 tablespoons green sugar sprinkles

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and either grease your 12-cup muffin tin or line it with paper liners.

In one big bowl, mix your dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, matcha powder and salt.

In small mixing bowl, whisk the melted butter and buttermilk with your egg.

Fold the liquids into the dry mixture, stopping when they are just mixed.

Divide the batter between your prepared muffins cups.

Sprinkle a generous amount of green sugar on the top of each cup of batter.

Bake in your preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove from the muffin tin and finish cooling on a rack.

Enjoy!

Bailey's Irish Cream Muffins #MuffinMonday

All that is good and more-ish about Bailey’s Irish Cream, baked in muffins, including a generous quantity of the actual stuff. 

St. Patrick’s Day has never been one of those days we celebrated in our house, despite my Irish roots and a grandmother with the last name of Fleming. As a school child, my memories included coloring shamrocks in class and discussing the patron saint of Ireland and the apparently baseless but fun legend of how he chased the snakes out of Ireland. And pinching people who forgot to wear green. As I got older, St. Patrick’s Day was a good reason to go to a party or have a green beer at a pub, preferably one named Kenneally's or Muddy Murphy’s. But I’ve grown up now and truth is, green beer is pretty unappetizing and it’s been years since I pinched or got pinched, no matter what the attire. Now if I want to celebrate the Irish, I’d rather have a short glass of neat single malt whiskey or some Bailey’s Irish Cream. Or, come to think of it, some Bailey’s Irish Cream muffins. What’s your favorite Irish tipple? Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day at your house?

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup, packed, or 100g soft brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons or 4 g instant coffee powder (I used two sachets of instant espresso powder.)
1 tablespoon hot water
1/4 cup or 60g butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup or 60 ml whipping cream
3/4 cup or 180ml Bailey's Irish cream
2 eggs

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and either grease your 12-cup muffin tin or line it with paper liners.

In a small measuring vessel or cup, dissolve the coffee powder in the hot water.

In a big mixing bowl, mix together your dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In small mixing bowl, whisk the melted butter, the Bailey’s and the cream with your two eggs and the dissolved coffee.

Fold the liquids to the dry mixture, stopping when they are just mixed. There might be little dry bits and that's okay.  That's preferably to over mixing.

Divide the batter between your prepared muffins cups.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove from the muffin tin and finish cooling on a rack.

Enjoy!

Ploughman’s Lunch Muffins #MuffinMonday

A traditional ploughman’s lunch of cheese, bread and pickle is offered at every pub of note across the United Kingdom. Close your eyes and eat a couple of these muffins alongside a pint of ale. If you can conjure the smell of stale cigarette smoke, consider yourself on an English holiday. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. I adore a pub lunch! 

First, a clarification: When I say pickle, I’m talking about something that is a cooked mixture of spices and vegetables, perhaps with some raisins and tart apples, not pickles of the dill/cucumber variety, although those might well be incorporated in a homemade version. Think sweet and sour chunky chutney. I buy the Branston brand which is made in the United Kingdom and is essential on any sandwich my British husband makes. There is always one jar in the refrigerator and a backup jar in the cupboard. A few jars make it into each shipment when we move, just in case the next place doesn’t have a supply. This pickle goes beautifully with extra sharp cheddar and beer in a savory muffin.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt flakes or 1/2 teaspoon regular sea salt
Few good grinds fresh black pepper
7 oz or 200g extra sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup or 60ml canola oil
1 egg
1/2 cup or 145g Branston Pickle
3/4 cup or 180ml beer

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease your 12-cup muffin pan liberally with canola, butter or non-stick spray or line with paper muffin cups. Since we are going to be baking with cheese, I suggest you also lightly spray the paper liners with non-stick spray if you are using those. I find that helps the paper peel off the muffin more easily.

Grate your cheese.  Put aside a large handful of about one ounce or 25g for topping the muffins.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, black pepper and stir well.

Add in the larger pile of grated cheese and stir again.

In another bowl, measure out your oil, egg and Branston Pickle. Add in the beer and whisk with a fork to combine.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Top each with some of the reserved cheese.

Bake in your preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for a few minutes and then remove the muffins from the pan to cool completely.

Enjoy!

For those who are paying attention, it says Est. 2010 because that's
when we finally bought the piece of furniture that is the bar in our house.
Simon received the pint glasses as a Christmas gift the same year.

***This post has an Amazon affiliate link for the Branston Pickle.***

Orange Honey Muffins #MuffinMonday

Sweetened naturally with honey and flavored with orange juice, these muffins make a delicious and reasonably healthy breakfast.

So, I am in Uganda, folks! I’m hoping to update this with first reactions and a little bit of what my days have been like but, just in case I don’t have internet, I’m going ahead and scheduling Muffin Monday before I leave Dubai. I’ve chosen two ingredients for today’s muffin that my research tells me are available and common in Uganda, although it seems that Ugandan oranges are a little more green on the outside than we are used to. And Ugandan honey is supposed to be wonderful.  Can’t wait to find out if that’s true!

Update: Still haven’t tried Ugandan honey but Yay! I have internet, albeit sporadically, so I’ll add my first impressions at the end of the recipe along with some photos, for those who are interested. For the rest of you, bake orange muffins with honey and think wild African thoughts! 

Ingredients
1 orange, for zest and decoration
2 cups or 250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/3 cup or 80ml honey
3/4 cup or 180ml orange juice
1/4 cup or 60ml milk
1/4 cup or 60ml vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sugar for topping, if desired

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin tin by spraying with non-stick spray or lining with muffin papers.

Combine your flour, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add in the zest of your orange and stir well.

Peel your orange and remove all of the loose bits of white pith. Using a sharp knife, cut the hard side off of each peg and remove the seeds. Slice six of the pegs in half lengthwise. Set aside. (You can juice the rest to make up part of your 3/4 cup or 180ml orange juice or just eat the remaining pegs. Guess what I did?)

In another smaller bowl, whisk together your egg, honey, milk, orange juice and oil.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until just mixed.

Divide your batter between the 12 muffin cups. Top each with an orange slice. Sprinkle with the sugar, if using.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Allow to cool for a few minutes in the pans and then remove to continue cooling on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Part of our human experience is that we try to make connections.  With people, with places we’ve lived, indeed with past experiences. As we arrived in Uganda, it felt more familiar than different. The airport was Freeport, Bahamas or Talara, Perú or Port of Spain, Trinidad many, many years ago. The landscape as we drove through the countryside shares the deep green foliage and red clay soil of Brazil or Malaysia and the dusty towns we passed through could well have been Balikpapan, Indonesia or San Fernando, Trinidad as easily as they could have been Macaé, Brazil during the years when we lived there or even our small area of Kuala Lumpur.

There were shop fronts selling myriad sundries, butchers with meat hanging in the open air, flamboyantly colored new clothes on hangers swinging in the breeze to entice passing shoppers, the languid men lounging on their boda-boda or motorcycle taxis waiting for a customer, women and children sitting on stoops, cooking or hanging out laundry and my favorite, shoe shops that were no more than a tarp laid out and spread with a colorful selection of sandals and flip flops and tennis shoes.

The red clay roads through the countryside. 

Storefronts in the village, complete with live chickens for sale.

Going through Kampala

Roadside dress shop

They carry enormous weights on their heads!

 As we passed out of the larger towns and into the countryside on our one and a half hour journey from airport to camp, many of the tiny cobbled-together houses by the roadside had little shelves in their front windows or outside their front doors with just a small bunch of tomatoes, or a couple of pineapples, perhaps some onions or eggs.

I was sitting in the front seat so I had a chance to chat with our driver and all around Mr. Get Things Done in Uganda, Kevin. When folks go to the market, they bring back a little extra to sell in the neighborhood. The slight mark-up they charge is worth it to the housewife who doesn’t have transportation and would have to either pay a motorcycle taxi or walk there herself. I thought that was pretty ingenious.

Notice the little window shelves on the houses, with a few things to sell.

No matter who you are or where you live, everybody's got laundry.

We are staying at a small farm, in thatched roof huts called rondavels. The property is owned by an English couple and they built the extra out buildings for their daughters who are now grown, so they rent them out on a daily basis.

We do have electricity and running water and even hot water if you time your shower right. The water is heated by a wood-burning stove that is lit in the morning. The windows are open and without screens so every bed has a mosquito net. Since malaria is prevalent here, sleeping under the net is imperative, as is a liberally slathering with insect repellent in the early evening.

Our rondavel

Our camp, for all its rustic appeal, has one real luxury, a freshwater pool made out of local stones in greys and blues. It is set in a huge garden with one of the most majestic trees I have ever seen. At the end of our first hot, dusty day at school (more on that next week), all I could think about was a dip in the chilly pool.

The pool. Boy, howdy, is it cold! 

Notice the person at the bottom. She is 5-foot, 5-inches tall.

We finished our first afternoon in Uganda with a quick tour of the Masooli School and a hike down to the watering hole where the villagers fill jerry cans of water for their daily use. This seems to be the responsibility of the children, with even the littlest of them carrying a small plastic jug.

Heading down to the watering hole.

A local on the left, doing it right, and one of our group trying hard on the right.

We filled only one jerry can and six of us took turns carrying it back up the hill to the school. With every plodding and ungainly step we gained a greater appreciation of the blessing that is piped in water and the strength of those wee ones who carry an equal load. All alone. Every day.

Check out next week's Muffin Monday where I've added photos of the school and our work there.

Till next week!