Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Mmmmm, I love all things lemon.  Anything with a tart, tangy-sweet flavor gets me every time.  These are so nice and refreshing.  The original recipe says it makes 1 dozen muffins.  But in my world...if I'm going to mess up my kitchen to bake, it better produce more than 12 of something.  So I doubled it and this is the recipe doubled.  It actually made 31 muffins for me and that made me *very* happy.  No, we won't eat 31 muffins right away.  That's why I thank God everyday for my freezer.

Muffin Batter:

4 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 cup sour cream

1 cup buttermilk (see my note at the bottom for buttermilk)

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 cups sugar

2 sticks of butter; softened

2 tablespoons grated lemon zest

4 large eggs

4 tsp. poppy seeds

Lemon Glaze:

2 tsp. melted butter

3/4-1 cup powdered sugar

8 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 tsp. lemon extract (if you have any, but it's not necessary)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line muffin tins with paper liners

Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, set aside.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream, buttermilk and lemon juice, set aside.

In your mixer bowl, mix together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until fully incorporated.  Add eggs 1 at a time blending well between each addition.  Continue to beat the mixture in med-high speed until light and fluffy; approx. 5-6 minutes.

Beat in dry ingredients in 3 additions alternately with sour cream/buttermilk mixture in 2 additions.  Mix until just blended. (In other words, add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, blend.  Add 1/2 the sour cream mixture, blend.  Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, blend.  Add remaining sour cream mixture, blend.  Add remaining 1/3 of the dry ingredients, blend.)

Stir in poppy seeds.  Spoon batter into paper lined muffin tins.  Bake for 20-22 minutes.  Allow to cool 5 minutes in the pan and then transfer the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the glaze, combine all ingredients and whisk together until all of the lumps are gone and mixture is creamy.  Mine came out a little thin, so you may need to add more than the stated powder sugar.  The original recipe didn't say how much to add, so I just went with it.  I'll know next time to maybe add 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar to get a nice thick glaze.  Let me know what works if you try it.  I glazed the muffins by putting the glaze in a Ziploc baggie and snipping the corner and just drizzling it over top each muffin in a sweeping motion.

*Buttermilk Note*

I never have buttermilk.  Ever.  So I did some research and found out you can make your own buttermilk at home!  You do it by (safely) souring some milk.  All you do is take 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and put it in a 1 cup measuring cup.  Fill the remainder of the cup with regular milk and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.  BOOM!  Buttermilk.