Bright and sunny, soft and fluffy lemon muffins! Topped with a sweet crumbly streusel topping and flavored with real lemons and no artificial flavoring, these muffins are cheery bundles of lemon glazed sunshine.
I told myself that once I quit my job I would try to cut back on the baking on the weekends.
That hasn’t exactly happened. Saturday I didn’t do any baking and I didn’t even know what to do with myself. I pulled weeds, I played with the dogs, but there was a nagging voice in the back of my head that insisted I needed to spend some more quality time with my KitchenAid.
That voice finally got the best of me yesterday, and I spent all Sunday baking and photographing and trying to convince Zach that he didn’t really need to follow around behind me cleaning up the kitchen because I’d totally get to it eventually.
I had some baking fails and managed to drop a giant spoonful of marshmallow fluff on the only piece of carpet in our whole house, but there were some more cheerful successes as well, mostly in the form of these lemon muffins.
I made these muffins for the third time in less than a week, just to confirm that they really were as soft, fluffy, and citrusy as they appeared to be the first two times, and my suspicions were confirmed — they are totally “blog-worthy” and I’m excited to share them with you today!
I didn’t use any lemon extract in these muffins because I rarely keep any on hand and wanted to flavor them naturally using only real lemons. If you want a more intense flavor and do keep lemon extract on hand, you can add about a quarter teaspoon of extract to the mix, but I think it’s totally unnecessary.
The lemon zest and lemon juice (a full ¼ cup!) go a long way flavor-wise and make for slightly sweet, slightly tart lemon muffins, but as perfect as the flavor is, my favorite part might actually be the crumbly streusel topping.
It’s just three ingredients — sugar, flour, and butter — cut into coarse crumbs with a pastry cutter and then sprinkled liberally over the tops of your muffins.
And I do mean liberally, I love my streusel topping <3
Just as with my bakery style chocolate chip muffins, when we bake these lemon muffins we’re going to start with the oven at a higher temperature and then reduce it part-way through the baking time (without opening the oven!). I talked more about why we do this back in my chocolate chip muffin recipe, but basically this helps our muffins get those fluffy sky high tops that we want, even if we’re loading them down with heavy crumbly streusel 😉
I like to top off these muffins with a simple 3-ingredient lemon glaze. While the muffins have a great lemon flavor in and of themselves thanks to the zest and a healthy pour of lemon juice, the lemon glaze it what really sets off the citrus flavor.
Enjoy!
Lemon Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (260g)
- ¾ cup sugar (150g)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoons salt
- ⅓ cup canola oil (80ml)
- ⅔ cup buttermilk (160ml)
- ¼ cup lemon juice (fresh-squeezed is best)
- 1 ½ Tablespoon lemon zest
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Crumb Topping
- ⅓ cup flour (65g)
- ⅓ cup sugar (70g)
- 3 Tablespoon salted butter cold (45g)
Lemon Glaze (optional)
- 1 ¼ cup powdered sugar (160g)
- 1 ½ Tablespoon lemon juice (20ml)
- 1 ½ teaspoon water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F (220C) and line muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.
- In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Set aside.
- In a separate, large bowl, whisk together canola oil, buttermilk, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
- Add eggs and vanilla extract and whisk until well incorporated.
- Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients and use a spoon or spatula to gently stir ingredients together until mostly combined (a few dry lumps are OK, it is critical to the fluffiness of our muffins that you don't overmix).
- Portion batter into prepared muffin tin, filling each liner over ¾ - way to the top with batter (do not overflow. I like to use a standard ice cream scoop with a lever to easily portion my batter).Set aside while you prepare your crumble topping.
Crumble Topping
- Whisk together flour and sugar.
- Use a pastry cutter to cut in butter until mixture is combined and like coarse crumbs.
- Sprinkle tops generously and evenly with crumble topping and place muffin tin in preheated oven.
- Bake on 425F (220C) for 8 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 (175C) (do not open the oven door or remove the muffins, just leave them in and reduce the temperature) and bake another 12 minutes.
- Remove muffins and allow to cool while you prepare lemon glaze.
Lemon Glaze (optional)
- While the muffins cool, prepare your glaze by whisking together powdered sugar, lemon juice, and water
- Drizzle glaze over the top of each cooled muffin. Allow to sit and harden about 10 minutes before serving.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
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Diane
Would this recipe work for Lemon bread with Blueberries?
Sam
Hi Diane! The blueberries may sink. I haven’t tried it, but I think it could turn out. If you do try it let me know how it goes. 🙂
Tracy
Followed the recipe exactly, and these muffins were delicious! So lemony and tender. I don’t know why this isn’t your top rated muffin! Thank you so much, Sam. I’m new to Sugar Spun Run, and I’m loving the recipes!
Sam
Thank you so much, Tracy! I am so glad you enjoyed them so much! I hope you love everything else you try just as much. 🙂
Cassidy Mainka
These turned out so delicious! Thanks for another great recipe, I love them all so much!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Cassidy! 🙂
Anne
Is there an error in grams per two cups four for these muffins? You named 260g in this recipe. Is it supposed to be 250 grams for two cups flour?
Sam
Hi Anne! This is an older recipe where I measured everything then weighed it (before I standardized my measurements). The amount listed is correct. I am working to go back through all of my recipes and correct any of these discrepancies. 🙂
Esther
Absolutely love your choc chp muffins & blueberry muffins. Made many batches with wonderful success. Made a batch of the Lemon Crumb (using Meyer Lemons) first batch was great. Just made it again and surprised about 1/3 of them fell. Always make jumbo size. 1st batch was doubled, this batch tripled. Any suggestions? Could choc chip recipe be used as base for lemon?
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed the muffins so much, Esther! I’m really confused as to what could have happened that only some of the muffins fell. The typical cause of falling muffins is under-baking. Was it all from one pan that fell or just some here and there?
Cris
One more question- should i use light cultured or whole cultured buttermilk? I’ve seen both options in my grocery store.
Sam
You’ll want the whole cultured buttermilk. Light cultured has less fat in it and you want the fat here. 🙂
Cris
Hi, I would like to try this recipe. Just wanted to know does the buttermilk have to be a room temperature?
Sam
Hi Cris! I usually recommend it to be at room temperature. 🙂
Miriam Rose Blanar
These were so good! The glaze really made it complete. I made these for my husband’s boss and my husband had to sample a few. He loved them so much, he almost didn’t want to take them to work. I followed the recipe exactly except my oven is on the hot side so I pulled them out a couple mins early and they tasted perfect. No problems whatsoever.
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Miriam! 🙂
Laurie
I don’t know what I did wrong, but these were dense and didn’t have a very distinct lemon flavor. 🙁
Sam
Hi Laurie! I’m so sorry this happened. It sounds like there may have been a little too much flour added to the cupcakes. Did you use weight measurements? If you are using cups I would recommend my article on how to properly measure flour. Even a little bit too much flour can hurt the cupcakes. I hope this helps. 🙂
Katie
These are amazing!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that you enjoyed them, Katie! Thank you for trying my recipe! 🙂
Makenzie
Hi Sam! LOVE this recipe! YUM! Wanting to use gluten free flour for these, do you have any suggestions for using coconut flour instead? Thanks a bunch 😊
Makenzie
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Makenzie! I have never tried using coconut flour before so I am not sure how it would do. I am not experienced baking gluten-free but another user used the gluten-free 1:1 flour and had success. I hope that you do too! 🙂
Tracy
Could you bake these in a jumbo muffin tin?
Sam
Hi Tracy! Yes that will work. 🙂
Tracy
Making the choc chip ones as we speak! Trying these next!
Sugar Spun Run
Happy Baking, Tracy! I hope that you love them!
Anna
I baked these today but added just under a cup of sugar. I used organic lemon juice instead of fresh lemon juice (gives stronger flavour), store bought butter milk (had a go at making my own and it just didn’t work) and canola oil (not vegetable oil which I had used previously). They are absolutely 100% delicious. My husband would eat the whole plate if I let him. This is now my definite go-to lemon muffin recipe. Thank you so much!!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so happy that you both enjoyed them, Anna! Thanks for trying my recipe and for commenting. Enjoy!
Anna
BTW – the neighbours also went mad for them. 🙂
Joan
Hi! Have tried this receipe at it tastes great! And i didn’t add the crumb topping! But i encountered a small issue, the middle was still moist and when we ate it felt like it was “dry”. I did 220degC 8mins, 180degC for 11mins. Any tips?
Sam
Hi Joan! It sounds like the muffins may have just needed a minute or two less in the oven (probably at the lower temperature). I am glad they tasted great otherwise!