Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Justin started nightfloat on Labor and Delivery last night which has left me pretty bored during the nights. This weekend I was trying to figure out what I could make that he could take with him, not need to be refrigerated, and could be eaten quickly. I decided on some muffins because those seem to hold up well and are less prone to being squished in a lunch box.

I've been craving lemons lately so I decided to try my hand at lemon poppy seed muffins. They've always been my favorite muffin, but I've never actually made them before. A while back I found a recipe for them from a cookbook my mom got me for either my birthday or Christmas. I had all the ingredients so I figured I might as well make them for breakfast!

I did a little twist on the lemon poppyseed muffins and added jam in the middle. Justin has been craving blueberry jam all week and this was the easiest/non-messy way of incorporating jam into his nightfloat lunch box. Since I was experimenting I decided to only make some of the muffins this way. It turned out to be amazing and I'd recommend filling all of the muffins with jam. We used raspberry jam (for mine) and blueberry jam (for Justin's). I used the different colored muffin cups to help me remember which ones had which jams in them.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

2/3 cup sugar

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 stick butter melted and cooled
2 Tbsp poppy seeds
Raspberry or blueberry jam/preserves

For the lemon glaze: 1 cup powdered sugar and 2-3 Tbsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 ˚F. Line a 12 mold muffin tray with muffin cups (color coding if you are using different types of jam).
In a small bowl mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and lemon zest with your fingers. Make sure all of the lemon zest is incorporated and the sugar smells like lemons. Mix in the flour mixture.
In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, butter, and lemon juice. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and fold together quickly. Mix in the poppy seeds.
Fill the muffin cups halfway with batter. Then put 1-2 tsp of jam in the middle of the muffins. Cover them with more batter.
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a knife/toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Let them cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack. Make sure they are cool before topping them with glaze.

To make the glaze: Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl. Mix in 1 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice. Then keep adding small amounts of lemon juice until the glaze can drizzle off the edge of the spoon. Pour glaze over the muffins.