Lemon Poppy Seed Mini Muffins

I got another new baking tool for Christmas - a mini muffin pan. Seeing as how there's not a lot of choices for mini cupcake liners, I decided to use it for muffins, as least at first. I even had a recipe in mind: a muffin recipe I found in the newspaper insert Parade back in 2012 (at least I think it was Parade - the torn page I saved doesn't have the name of the publication on it). It's a base muffin recipe with almost a dozen different variations, including lemon poppy seed (just like with soft pretzels, I think this lemon "kick" is permanent). I quickly realized that I wasn't sure how long to bake them for since this is a mini pan. After doing a little research, I found an informative page that explains how to convert a muffin recipe into a mini muffin recipe, specifically for the baking time. Pretty simple - I think I might do all my muffins like this from now on.

Lemon Poppy Seed Mini Muffins (Parade, October 7, 2012, pg. 18)

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 2 tbsp poppy seeds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400℉. Coat muffin pan with cooking spray or line muffin cups with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and poppy seeds. In a large bowl, beat eggs, milk, oil, and lemon extract for 1 minute on medium. Add flour mixture. Beat just until no streaks of flour remain - do not over mix!
3. Spoon batter into muffin cups (I was able to fill all 24 cups). Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until tops of muffins spring back when pressed lightly (15 minutes for mini muffins). Transfer muffins to a rack to cool slightly.

They turned out great - except there's not much of a lemon flavor. Maybe I'll put in the full 1 1/2 tsp lemon substitute (the original amount for vanilla). Or even 2 tsp.