blue artichoke

I don't know why, but April and lemons are linked in my mind and belly. April is the beginning of spring, and the warm weather and blooming trees provide the perfect setting for light, bright flavors. I picked out a recipe for lemon poppy seed muffins for breakfast this morning. I was well into making them yesterday afternoon when I discovered that I should have checked my ingredients more thoroughly before I started. Though I had all the necessary ingredients, my yogurt was old and sprouting mold growth and my lemon juice wasn't enough for the recipe. One problem at a time. I substituted the splash of whipping cream I had in the fridge and mayonnaise for the yogurt. GC is grossed out at the thought of mayo in muffins, but mayo is pretty much just egg yolks and oil, two common muffin ingredients. I didn't put in the full amount of mayo, though, thinking that the flavor might overwhelm the delicate lemonyness of the muffins. I should have used more mayo; the resulting muffins were really dry and crumbly. For the second ingredient problem, the insufficient lemon juice, I topped off with lime juice and added two packets of True Lemon powder to the glaze. That worked really well; the glaze was super lemony, which counteracted the relative blandness of the muffins themselves. I tasted the batter before I scooped it into the muffin tin; it didn't taste like much of anything. I added two True Lemon powder packets, then two more for a faint lemon flavor. I was afraid to add any more, just in case heat caused the lemon flavor to bloom. I didn't want a mouth-puckering morning muffin.

When we tried them this morning, they were just OK. The texture was too crumbly and really dry; the flavor was unevenly distributed to a bland bottom and a tart top. If you bite through both parts, the flavors even out in the mouth, but if you like to eat the tops first and butter the bottoms as I do, the flavors aren't so great.

Because I had a significant ingredient substitution, I didn't get a true test of this recipe. I'm not going to post the recipe until I get the chance to make them again as directed and determine whether the muffins are worthy of sharing.