A Winter’s Treat - Lemon and Poppyseed Muffins

I have an addiction, and that addiction is Stardew Valley. I love the game from the moment I started playing it and I can always find something to do every time I play it. For that reason, my partner decided to get me the Stardew Valley Cookbook for Christmas which I absolute adored the moment I saw it. It contains all the food recipes that you can find in the game, and I was eager to make something out of it. Que my colleague at work having a Spring fare at work, where people could bring in homemade goodies to share with people. Despite it being listed as a Spring fare, it was at the beginning of March, Spring technically hadn’t started so I thought I could easily get away with making this Winter dish. Remember to pre-heat that oven and read on to find out what I thought of the recipe.

For this recipe in the winter section, it contains a little winter root in the corner, which is a cute little touch. The illustrations of the recipe are beautiful, with a blue border going around the recipe, a juniper playing with an egg and what the product should look like. It also contains who gave you the recipe in game with a picture of them (The Queen of Sauce in this case), how many it makes, a little backstory to the recipe and even a quote from Leah.

The ingredients were easy to get a hold off, with the only thing I couldn’t find was the turbinado sugar, which I substituted for brown sugar, which didn’t seem to work as well, so if you get a hold of the actual sugar, I recommend it. The recipe was easy to follow and took a little while to do, but you can’t rush perfection after all. I followed the recipe exactly, however I forgot I had a fan oven, which meant that the cooking time should have been reduced for me, so my muffins came out a little over done. I had left over lemons, so I made up some lemon icing to hide the extra brownness they had to them.

Now for the final bit, how did it taste? For me personally, the recipe wasn’t as lemony as I would have liked it, however everyone who tried them seemed to really enjoy them. Adding the lemon icing was a great addition to add more of a lemon flavour that I thought was missing. The texture of the muffin was delicious, as it had a slight crunch when you bit into it with a fluffy centre (which might be due to overcooking them, but the texture was still lovely).

Overall, I would recommend making this recipe, as it is a delicious muffin to make, and they were all gone at the Spring fare. Just remember to check what type of oven you use and adjust the time and temperature accordingly. Also, if you like a stronger flavour like I do, just might want to add slightly more lemon juice and zest, than what is recommended.