#Lemon chia seed muffins

After 8 years of tinkering I think I have finally found a recipe for lemon poppy seed muffins that I am happy with. Here is what I do for one dozen muffins:

Combine the following ingredients in a large bowl:

Zest of 2 lemons

1/2 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of oil

1/4 cup of applesauce

2 eggs

4 oz (half a brick) of cream cheese

1/4 cup of milk

2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

1 teaspoon vanilla

Then I mix with an immersion blender until homogenized.

In a smaller bowl, sift the dry ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Mix with a whisk, then add 1/4 cup of chia seeds and whisk together.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mix just until combined.

Bake in a greased muffin pan at 375 for 12-15 minutes.

The cream cheese really makes this great, but I have also substituted sour cream and ricotta cheese and those both work very well.

They really seem to need all three lemon ingredients: zest, juice, and lemon extract to have a real lemon flavor and not be bland. I keep a bottle of lemon extract on hand just to make these.

The reason I started using chia seeds instead of poppy seeds was that my kids loved poppy seed muffins and asked for them all the time, but I couldn't find anywhere to buy poppy seeds in bulk. It was a little too expensive to keep buying them in a small bottle. I could get a large bag of chia seeds at Costco for a reasonable price. The bag lasted for months and months. Plus chia seeds are supposedly nutrient-dense. They are about the same size as poppy seeds and have a similar crunch so they make an excellent substitute, I think.

I have fond memories of getting lemon poppy seed muffins at grab n' go breakfast at college and eating them on the way to my 8 a.m. physics class. They were always perfectly sweet and fluffy and crunchy with poppy seeds.

Most of what I learned in physics class itself has long gone.

I do vividly remember our professor telling us once that there was a remote probability all the oxygen molecules could randomly migrate into one corner of the room. Several people glanced back toward afore said corner as though they expected to see the oxygen molecules zipping over there. But it WAS 8 in the morning, as I said.

The only other thing I remember is that our professor allowed us to have one 3x5 notecard as a cheat sheet during the final exam and we could write whatever we wanted on it. One student wrote the answers to every single homework problem we'd had that semester, covering every square centimeter of his card in the tiniest writing possible. We were all in awe, the rest of us that had a few formulas and equations written on ours. I don't have Facebook anymore so I can't say for sure, but I have a feeling that guy went on to lead a very interesting life.

Besides that, I don't how much good General Physics II did me and I can't say I have a terribly interesting life. I loved those poppy seed muffins, though, they meant a lot to me. So this is my best attempt to recreate them.