Brownie Points

Elise’s Lemon Poppy Seed muffin recipe has remained my absolute go to muffin recipe, three years and counting.

Some fun variations/substitutions I use in my weekly muffin making:

• + cutting the recipe in half, using only 1 cup of flour, 1/3 cup of sweet, and using a 1/3 cup scoop results in 6 “normal” sized muffins.
• + substituting half of the flour with either coconut flour, whole wheat, or buckwheat is a fun way to introduce yourself to new flour flavors.
• + I usually lower the amount of sugar to ~2/3 cup for a whole recipe, or 1/3 cup for a half recipe.
• + sprinkling special no-melt, stay crunchy, sugar on the top of the muffin before baking helps the sweet tooth when you have drastically reduced the sweetness of the muffin batter.
• + any oil can directly be subbed for the amount of butter: coconut oil, sunflower seed oil, olive oil, brown butter, combinations, etc.
• + direct substitution of mayonnaise (homemade natch) for the amount of fat takes care of the fat and egg recipe requirement.
• + adding two whole pulverized oranges (ala immersion blender) results in a wetter, almost custard like muffin.
• + honey can be directly substituted for the amount of sugar.
• + immersion blender style with fruit :
  • Soak 2 cups of dried figs in hot water to cover overnight.
  • Next day, coarsely chop up half of the figs to use as stir-ins to the batter.
  • Add the remaining strained whole soaked figs to a mason jar with the recipe amounts for sugar, salt, fat, vanilla, egg and yogurt. Sip the strained fig water as a special muffin-making tea.
  • Pulverize the mason jar contents with the immersion blender thoroughly.
  • Pour into a bowl with your dry ingredients, chopped figs to stir in, walnuts, and orange zest.
    Gently mix- not over mixing, and bake as directed.

I think you’ll like these as much as I do!

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