dorie's lemon poppy seed muffins

dorie as in dorie greenspan. i have no idea how i have managed all things kitchen all these years and not bumb into her...

anyway, as i mentioned in my april 10th post, i recently got her baking, from my home to yours cookbook. her lemon poppy seed muffins looked very attempting at first sight...ahem, these are mine...







i tried to find dorie's recipe on her website but couldn't (which isn't necessarily the same that it's not in her blog). her recipe is online but i'll let you find yourself, i feel that if the author didn't post it, i won't.

it din't take much to figure out what sour cream and creme fraiche are in finnish. in fact, that part was quite easy. trying to determine which of the dairy products offered in finland are similar in texture, taste and behaviour compared with dairy products recipes from all over the world call for is a another, longer story.

i made these muffins already last weekend at the cottage sans the poppy seeds (equally good without) and found out that whatever the english name for our kermaviili might be, it works in this recipe and one package is just the right amount. it's like with kajmak in croatia, i loved cooking and baking with it, but we just don't have anything just the same.

when working with recipes that call for lemon peel, make sure you get organic lemons (you don't want to be eating all those pesticides...)







what fragrance! don't skip this part, rubbing the sugar and lemon peel with your warm fingers will bring out all the flavors.







the batter will be lumpy, bigger mistake will be to mix too much.







almost too hot to handle. i had to resist the urge to put butter on top the hot muffin (did manage to do that!) baked these last night and had one for breakfast today. they definitely are best straight from the oven (what isn't?) but 15 seconds in the microwave did "freshen" it up a bit, still very tasty.







i've picked out a habit to post-it all interesting recipes in my cookbooks (dorie got 17 of them) and magazines (that would be the february issue of delicious in the background) for easy reference. now, if i could only find the dicipline to stick to any one recipe and not freefall them...well, baking is a no brainer, but with food i'm hopeless.







ps. i made a biga last night for sour dough bread. as i thought that cling film wouldn't stay on the jar i made it in, i placed the lid on (the lid isn't completely airtight) the jar and the jar in a plastic bag that i then tied with a knot. very simple. during the night, the jar had moved 15 cm and keeled over...certain someone saved the biga, but i'm not sure i want to bake with it... what if it explodes in the oven?!?