Lemon Crunch Muffins

Lovely lemony crunchy sugary muffins! These turned out beautifully and I enjoyed one of these for my dinner tonight. I cut it in half and slathered one side with raspberry jam. So delicious! The only bad thing about these is that when I flipped them out of the pan, a lot of the sugary topping fell off the muffins. Bummer. But besides that, they were a delicious muffin with a strong lemon flavor. Not tart, just lemony. I thought for a moment about adding some shredded coconut in the topping ingredients. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Lemon/coconut is a great combo. But then nobody in my family would eat them so I left the coconut out.

These lemon muffins would be a wonderful contribution to a summer brunch or a picnic basket. They are delicious by themselves but the addition of jam or even a creamy lemon curd really brings them over the top! Be careful not to overbake these. Don't wait until a DRY toothpick emerges from the center of the baked muffin. Very moist crumbs should appear.

I absolutely love my crown muffin pan. Doesn't it give the muffins a nice big round cap on top? The muffins are HUGE. I recently saw a crown muffin pan at City Kitchens downtown Seattle that makes standard size crown muffins rather than the jumbo. I think I will invest in that soon.

I guess I could have been more careful in removing my muffins from the pans. I could have gently lifted each one out and placed it nicely on the rack. But I took the easy way out - I flipped the entire pan over in 1 big swoop and all 6 of the muffins fell out at once onto the parchment.

The sugary edges that fell off were so crunchy and sweet!

Lemon Crunch Muffins

4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Zest of 2 lemons (medium to large lemons)
Juice of 2 lemons
1 1/2 cups sour cream
4 large eggs
3 tsp vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup vegetable oil


Crunchy lemon topping
1 stick cold butter cut into chunks
about 1/2 cup flour
about 2 cups granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon

Place all topping ingredients in a food processor and spin until powdery. No butter chunks should be visible. Set aside till you fill your muffins pans with batter.

To make the muffins:
400 degree oven
Prepare muffin tins - (I used no liners - just a nonstick BAKING spray. I got a perfect 12 jumbo crown muffins out of this recipe.)
Whisk the dry ingredients together, including the lemon zest, in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients, including the lemon juice.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir everything together. Don't worry about lumps - just DON'T overmix. ( I generally stir just till I see no remaining dry pockets of flour.)

Spoon batter in prepared muffin tins. (I filled mine about 3/4 full) Spoon crunchy lemon topping over each filled cup. (I put 2 heaping tablespoons on each one - the batter was not even visible underneath) Bake until toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out with moist crumbs attached - about 25 minutes. (I baked my muffins for 10-15 minutes at 400 degrees and then reduced the oven temp to 375 for the remainder of baking time)

Remove pans from oven and place on wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes before popping them out of the pan to cool completely.