Last Monday the office were having a bake sale to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care.  As I work from home on Mondays it was going to be difficult to participate.  However, I still wanted to do my bit, so Boo and I baked these lemon and poppy seed muffins to then ‘sell’ to Daddy (they’re his coffee shop favourite).

I  took the recipe from Delia’s Book of Cakes and will admit that these are not my first batch.   In the first instance I doubled the recipe (which stated that it was enough for just four muffins) and then split this between 12 muffin cases.  The resulting muffins were too small (not enough batter per muffin case), too bitter (too many poppy seeds? too much lemon juice?) and too burnt (smaller cakes obviously need less time in the oven to cook – doh!)  Ultimately too inedible.

Not wanting to be defeated I decided to try again, this time sticking with the recipe to the letter.  A much more satisfying bake was produced i.e. the muffins actually looked like muffins, and through downsizing the recipe, the balance of lemon flavour in the sponge seemed to be much better (or was that because I used smaller lemons this time).  However, on the downside they were still a little dry (overbaked?) & I would argue that the quantity of poppy seeds was still far more than was needed.  I’ll post a my own revised version of the recipe once I’ve had another go and am happy with all the elements.

To add a little something to balance out the dry sponge, I took about 100g of white sugar paste (fondant icing) and to this I added the juice of half a lemon and a couple of teaspoons of water.  I then beat this, first with a wooden spoon to break it down.  Once I had started to work it loose I then started beating the mixture with a fork until I had produced a smooth paste.  I was then able to spoon enough on the top of the muffins to add a thick glaze/frosting which I left to set.