Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Sometime, somewhere, I had read that muffins are just ugly cupcakes. Strongly believing that (almost) everyone is entitled to their opinion, I disagree with that statement and claim that muffins and cupcakes are cousins.


Speaking of cousins, brings me fond memories of my cousins and my grandma Stefana. She had this little cottage and there was meadow behind where we used to run and pick flowers. Ah, memories! The reason I'm ranting about muffins and my grandma in a same place has a point, I promise. You see, it is thanks to my grandma (may she rest in peace) that I discovered poppy seed. She was visiting and one day, she took me to see a cousin of hers. I was probably 6 or 7 at that time. As the custom goes in the ole' country, when guests arrive, you start taking out food and piling it on the table. Among the piles of food, there was something I hadn't seen before. It was poppy seed cake and I fell in love with the taste!


I haven't been quite successful in trying to reproduce that particular flavour, but that's probably due to the fact that I never tried. However, my mom can do that with closed eyes.


Recently, while shopping in a health food store (yeah, I do know where they sell healthy stuff), I took a small pack of poppy seeds. I don't know why I did it, but nonetheless, I got it.


So, today I'm sitting bored out of my wits and hating the pile of clothes that needs to be ironed and suddenly I remembered the poppy seeds. Off to the lab and experiments! So, here's the result, fluffy, flavoursome and just as intended.

Lemon & Poppy seed muffins

For 4 BIG muffins, you will need:

75 grams sugar

1 large egg

155 grams flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

60 ml plain yogurt

15 grams poppy seeds

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp olive oil

5-6 tbsp milk

Method:

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Combine the wet ingredients with a whisk and add to the dry ingredients. Mix just enough to combine. Divide the bater equally among 4 large muffin cases and bake 20-25 minutes.