May 24, 2011

I promise I'm still alive, now have some almond poppy seed muffins!

We’ll come back to these after a few brief messages from my life…
The past few months have been a blur. Quite a lot has happened since early February. I turned 23; got engaged; learned about 104 muscles in the legs, arms, shoulders & part of the neck; took 13 exams; passed my certification in public health exam; planned most of a wedding; got back in much better shape; read 1.5 leisure books and re-read 12 books (that I have read many, many times before so they were quick re-reads); my brother graduated from law school (I’m so proud!)…the list could go on and on. Between the endless stream of exams, planning a wedding, trying to stay healthy, and maintaining my tenuous grip on sanity, I haven’t had much time to stop and smell the roses.

To state the obvious, it is, incredibly, nearly the end of May. I’m not sure where the time has gone because I could swear, apart from the chronic fatigue, my faithful companion, spring break ended yesterday. No? It’s been more than a month since then? Wow. Time flies, or rather, it passes imperceptibly and slips continually from my grasp. I meant to post this recipe around 20 days ago in honor of there being 100 days until my wedding! There’s now 80 days until the big day. I realize that 80 is not a particularly significant number, but it’s a round number, it’s Monday night, I’m getting married in 80 days(!!) and these are some darn good muffins!

I’m about to share with you some almond poppy seed muffins my friend and I made a few weeks ago. These are particularly appropriate for me to mark, 20 days belatedly, being 100 days until my wedding as this is the one of the flavors for our cake! Before I get to the muffins, I’d just like to go on a tangent here to express how absolutely delighted I am that my wedding venue came with a caterer and a bakery because it has saved me innumerable hours of researching, contacting, and obtaining quotes from caterers and bakeries. I’m so glad it was all taken out of my hands just by picking a location! Selecting the other vendors has been such a trial of patience for me and, quite honestly, I can’t wait to be done with all this wedding vendor business! I’ve got one more to select and then I think I can have a tiny piece of my sanity back.

Now, back to the muffins. Does anyone else find it frustrating that it is near impossible to find poppy seed muffins that are not lemon? Apart from the giant Costco muffins, I’ve rarely, if ever, seen non-lemon poppy seed muffins, which is a shame since almond poppy seed is so delicious! In fact, almond poppy seed muffins rank among my favorite type of muffins (right up there with pink muffins from UCLA dining halls!). I’ve never made them before because, well, I didn’t know that you could get poppy seeds in the spice aisle of your local store, but now I do and I am adding these to my baking repertoire. I’m not sure where today’s recipe came from, but it is not my recipe.

This recipe says that it makes 12 muffins. It probably makes more as we doubled this recipe and made 48 muffins and a loaf (which unfortunately met a tragic end). To start out, in a bowl separate from the one you will eventually combine everything in, combine the flour, salt & baking powder. Next beat together the eggs, sugar and vegetable oil.

Then stir in the milk, vanilla extract, and almond extract.

Add the dry mixture and stir until just combined.

Once, it’s just become homogenous, stir in the poppy seeds! You could actually add the poppy seeds to the dry mixture as we did to reduce the number of combining steps.

Using either liners or a well greased muffin pan, fill each cup to around 2/3 full. Sprinkle the top with the sliced almonds.

We got a bit lazy towards the end and decided to make a loaf rather than continue making muffins. As much as I love muffins and cupcakes, I really hate filling muffin pans.

Pop the muffins in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the tops are lightly browned or a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. If you opted to make a loaf, you will probably need to leave it in the oven for closer to 50 minutes.
Enjoy!

Almond Poppy Seed MuffinsSource unknown
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 1.5 cups milk
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 1/2 tbsp poppy seeds
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 tsp almond extract
  • 3 cups flour
  • +/- 1/3 cup sliced almonds
  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
  2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt & baking powder. You can also mix in the poppy seeds here or later after you have combined the dry and wet ingredients.
  3. Beat together eggs, sugar & vegetable oil.
  4. Stir in milk and the vanilla and almond extracts.
  5. Stir in the dry ingredients until just combined. Stir in the poppy seeds if you haven’t done so already.
  6. Fill muffin/cupcake liners or greased muffin pan to 2/3 full. Sprinkle the top with sliced almonds.
  7. Bake 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned and a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  8. Share with your friends!

May 5, 2011



I know it’s something we hear all the time, but it never hurts to be reminded.