Lemon Crumb Muffins

First things first: this is a gigantic recipe. Make sure you have a bowl and/or mixer that is large enough to handle all the ingredients. I have what I would call a typical-size mixer and I got a bit nervous when I started measuring things out. My strategy ended up being a little bit of hand mixing to get the dry ingredients moist and then switching (carefully) to the stand mixer to get everything incorporated. 

The good part about it being a large recipe is that you can easily store the batter and make it in batches. This is exactly what I did and it's worked well. I just found I needed to up the time by about 5 minutes if the batter was coming straight out of the fridge. 

Also, am I doing this right? When a recipe tells me to "cut in butter" I put the dry ingredients in a bowl, usually slice the butter to about 1 Tbsp pieces, and then use 2 forks to sort of smash it all together. I scrape the forks every so often and smash away again, eventually getting small, dry balls. Any other suggestions on how to do this?

Muffins

• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 cups sugar
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 8 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 cups sour cream
• 2 cups butter, melted
• 3 Tbsp grated lemon zest
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice

Topping

• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cold butter, cubed

Glaze

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup lemon juice

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, combine the eggs, sour cream, butter, lemon zest, and juice. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl make the topping. Combine flour and sugar; cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over batter. 

Bake muffins for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack. In a small bowl, whisk glaze ingredients; drizzle over warm muffins. Serve warm. 

NOTES: I made this recipe because I came into possession of a LOT of Meyer lemons. They were getting a bit ripe so getting zest off the lemon was a tad difficult. I definitely didn't get the full amount the recipe calls for, and it would have been better if I had. 

Also, maybe because I used Meyer vs regular lemons, it was not very lemony. I baked one batch and noticed this so I then added about 1 tsp of lemon juice from the bottle in the fridge (shhhh!). It was much better. 

I adjusted the topping amounts too. When I went to cut in the butter, I was still left with a ton of dry ingredients. I lowered the amount of flour and sugar recommended so that there would be A) a little less leftover at the end and, B) a better balance of all the ingredients. 

Tip: When drizzling the glaze over the muffins at the end, remember to put some wax paper down on your counter under the cooling racks. Then cleanup is much easier. 

Serves 40

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Recipe from Taste of Home