Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Easy vegan lemon poppy seed muffins with bakery-style tops and a luscious lemon glaze! These muffins come together in just 1 bowl and use common pantry ingredients.
These lemon muffins are perfect for Spring just like my vegan lemon cupcakes, carrot muffins or lemon olive oil cake.
Ingredients to make these muffins
The full list of ingredient quantities and instructions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Notes about the ingredients
Dairy-free milk. I prefer using soy milk or oat milk as they usually make the muffins more tender. However, any milk will work!
Any neutral-flavored oil, to allow the lemon flavor to shine through. If you enjoy the taste of olive oil, it can complement the lemon flavor, just like my lemon olive oil cake. Coconut oil will work, but make sure you serve the muffins warm as coconut oil can solidify and will make the muffins feel dry.
Fresh lemon juice and zest for the best flavor! When the lemon juice is mixed with dairy-free milk, it turns into vegan buttermilk which makes lighter lemon poppyseed muffins. If you’re really in a pinch, you can use bottled lemon juice, but the flavor won’t be as good.
How to make vegan lemon muffins
First, add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl and stir until well combined. For extra lemon flavor, you can rub the lemon zest into the sugar. This releases the essential oils in the zest and brings out its flavor. To see exactly what this looks like, check out my lemon poppy seed cake post.
Then add all your wet ingredients to the same bowl, and mix until just combined. It’s okay if there are lumps in your batter, as long as they aren’t lumps of dry flour.
The lemon muffin batter should be a little thicker than regular pancake batter, which you can see in Image 4 below.
Dividing the muffin batter and baking
Each muffin cup should be filled almost all the way. This helps create those gorgeous high muffin tops!
For minimal cleaning and ease, I used a large ice cream scoop to portion the muffin batter.
I’d also recommend sprinkling some flaked almonds on top of the vegan lemon poppy seed muffins! It’s an easy way to add texture to the muffins and elevate their appearance.
For extra lemon flavor, I’d suggest making the easy lemon icing. You only need 2 ingredients and it adds a punch!
The role of acid in baking
In vegan baking, we often add a little acid (in the form of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar) as it helps the cake become more fluffy and rise. This can help with eggless cakes, such as my vegan blueberry muffins.
However, when too much acid is added, it has the opposite effect and can make a cake flatter, as demonstrated by The Cake Blog. That’s why so many lemon cakes are flat! I counteracted this by slightly reducing the baking powder.
Interestingly, these vegan lemon muffins rise best with 2.5 teaspoons of baking powder. This is compared to using 3 teaspoons of baking powder or a mixture of baking powder and baking soda!
Tips for making tall bakery-style muffins
Due to the amount of acid in lemon baked goods, they are usually a little flat. However, I tested out a few methods for getting taller muffin tops:
Chill your muffin batter for 1-2 hours or overnight. This allows the flour to absorb the wet ingredients and thickens the batter. A thicker batter usually rises more in the oven. You can see the between muffins that are baked immediately and those rested overnight in this helpful post by Handle the Heat. If you do this, just make sure you use double-acting baking powder.
Initially bake the muffins at a high temperature. Preheat your oven to 220°C (425°F) and once you put your muffins in, reduce the oven to 180°C (350°F). The initial boost of heat makes the muffins rise quickly but the lower temperature allows the muffins to cook evenly.
Customizing this recipe
This recipe bakes a little differently in a larger pan. Instead, I recommend using my lemon poppy seed loaf cake or my vegan lemon layer cake and adding poppy seeds.
You may also like my:
– Vegan Lemon Blueberry Cake
– Vegan Lemon Olive Oil Cake
– Vegan Lemon Drizzle Cake
Yes! You may need to bake the muffins for an extra 2-5 minutes, depending on whether you use fresh or frozen blueberries. I’d recommend adding the blueberries to the batter just before the batter is fully combined.
You do not need to toss the berries in flour beforehand – they will not sink with this batter! Alternatively, check out my vegan blueberry muffin recipe.
The easiest swap would be coconut sugar or any granulated sugar replacer. Note that coconut sugar will make these muffins darker in color.
More easy vegan muffin recipes
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Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Ingredients
Dry ingredients
- 3 cups (375g) all-purpose plain flour, (note 1 for gluten free)
- 1 ¼ cups (250g) granulated sugar, (note 2)
- 2 ½ tablespoons poppy seeds
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest, or zest from 2 large lemons
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt, optional
Wet ingredients
- 1 cup (250g) dairy-free milk, room temperature
- ⅔ cup (165g) neutral flavored oil, such as olive oil (note 3)
- ¼ cup (60g) lemon juice, from approximately 1 large lemon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
Topping (optional)
- 3 tablespoons flaked almonds
- 1 cup (100g) powdered sugar / icing sugar
- 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F, note 4). Arrange muffins liners in a muffin pan.
Make the muffin batter:
- Add all the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl. Mix until well combined and the ingredients are evenly distributed.
- Add all of the wet ingredients to the bowl and mix until just combined.
- Use an ice cream scoop or a large spoon to divide the mixture into your muffin tin.
Bake the muffins:
- Optional: sprinkle flaked almonds on top of your muffins.
- Place the muffin pan in the oven and immediately reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F).
- Bake the muffins for around 22-25 minutes. They are ready when you can insert a toothpick into a muffin, and it comes out clean. Some moist crumbs on your toothpick are fine, but there shouldn't be any wet batter on it.
- Cool the muffins in the pan for 10 minutes then allow them to cool on a wire rack.
Make the lemon icing (optional):
- Add the powdered sugar and lemon juice to a medium bowl. Whisk until combined. The icing should be runny but hold its shape for a few seconds when you drizzle it. To make the icing thicker, add 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar and mix again. To make the icing thinner, add a few drops of lemon juice and mix again.
- When the muffins have cooled, drizzle the icing on top.
- Enjoy the muffins warm or at room temperature. Note that the icing will melt if you warm up the muffins.
- Store the muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 days, in the fridge for 3 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Video
Notes
- To make these vegan lemon muffins gluten-free, substitute the flour with 1 1/2 cups (150g) almond flour and 1 1/2 cups (240g) gluten-free all-purpose flour. Alternatively, King Arthur’s measure for measure flour works as a 1:1 replacement – if using, I suggest baking the muffins for 24-27 minutes.
- This amount of sugar creates moderately sweet muffins, especially when paired with fresh lemon juice. Alternatively, you may use coconut sugar. This will result in darker and less sweet muffins.
- You may use melted coconut oil (room temperature) for these muffins. However, coconut oil can solidify in colder climates and this will make the muffins feel drier than normal. If so, I’d recommend warming up the muffins before you serve them.
- The initial high temperature encourages the muffins to rise higher.
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Absolutley delicious. Came out perfect. Can’t wait to try more of your muffin recipes.
Thanks.
Aw that’s wonderful news!! I hope you enjoy any other muffin recipes you get to make. Thanks so much for your feedback!
Wow, these are such good muffins! I’ve made quite a few in the past and never really had great success, but these were really yummy. I’m not vegan but being able to bake without eggs is fab and I also love the fact that lots of your recipes use oil instead of butter. Thanks so much
Hi Kate, I’m thrilled you enjoyed these muffins and had success with this recipe! And good to know that you prefer oil over butter too! Thanks so much for your feedback, I appreciate it a lot 🙂
Made these today- decadent and lovely! My husband loves big POOFY muffins and these were awesome.
We love this description of ‘poofy’ 😄 So glad these were such a hit with your husband. Thank you for your feedback!
These are so good!! I made 2 different vegan lemon poppyseed recipes side by side for comparison, and these easily came out on top…no competition!
Moist, easy to make, and so tasty!
My fiancé is allergic to dairy and eggs, so a lot of my baking has to be vegan. He has asked these to be a staple in the house now, and is learning the recipe so he can make them whenever he wants as well. Great recipe!
We’re so happy these muffins came out on top in your taste test and that this recipe works perfectly for your fiancé’s allergies! It’s wonderful to hear they’re becoming a staple too. Thanks so much for your feedback!
Hi Anthea, thank you for this amazing recipe! I made these without the poppyseeds and they were delicious! I preheated to 220 °C and immediately reduced to 180 °C like you described and followed the exact recipe. In my oven they came out a little pale after 25 minutes and just a little to moist I think. So in my case they needed a few minutes longer to bake. But oh, the smell and taste of these was amazing! I want to make another batch!
Hi Desiree, I’m so so glad you enjoyed these muffins! Yes, you’re probably right about the bake time – all ovens work a little differently and sometimes it’s best to follow the cues of your own oven ❤️. Thank you soo much for your kind comment and for coming back to let me know! I appreciate it so much 😊
My favourite muffins have made them lots of times
That’s so lovely to hear, thank you for letting us know! We’re really glad they’ve become a favourite and it’s always a joy knowing a recipe’s been made again and again 💛🍋
Don’t know why these didn’t work out. I followed the recipe using GF and Almond flour as suggested note 1.
The batter was very runny so I let it sit for an hour or so as suggested. The muffins rose very quickly in the oven and looked great then they just as quickly sank in the middle. Preheated oven temp 220deg and lowered to 180deg. The result was very disappointing and extremely sweet.
Hi Jennifer, I’m sorry the gf version didn’t work for you. I suspect it’s due to the particular brand of gluten free flour as all blends are made of different ingredients so results can vary. Which blend did you use? And did you use grams or cups? If your muffins didn’t rise, it makes sense that your muffins were overly sweet and the texture was off.
Hi! These look delicious! Do you think I could substitute the dairy-free milk for vegan yogurt?
Hi Caitlin, yes I’d say you would be able to, but you’d still need to add a little milk as yogurt is much thicker. For example, my chocolate muffin recipe has very similar quantities, but I used 1 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup dairy-free milk. Hope that helps!
Thanks Anthea!! I ended up trying them with just vegan yogurt and a little bit of water since we were out of milk, but luckily they still came out amazing!! I did let the batter chill for 30-60 minutes before baking so maybe that helped everything meld together in the thicker batter? I’m not sure how my yogurt muffins compare to the normal recipe, but they were still moist and delicious! I added the optional blueberries also. Great recipe!😄
Aw, that’s wonderful! I’m so glad that they worked with yogurt and I’ll have to try it that way next time. Thanks so much for coming back to let me know 🙂
Oh my goodness. These are delicious. I followed the recipe to the letter and they turned out very moist with just the right level of sweetness and they rose to perfection. I don’t even think they needed the icing as they were scrumptious without it. My family are chocolate lovers and chose these over the chocolate muffins I made for a family get together. Thanks so much.
Hi Norma, that’s amazing to hear! I’m secretly a chocolate lover too and I’m thrilled that your family opted for these muffins (I’m sure your other muffins were delicious too). Thanks so much for your lovely feedback – you’ve made my day 🙂
So far so good! Currently waiting on my muffins to finish baking but they seemed pretty good in flavor. I did replace sugar with 3/4 cup of maple syrup.
Oh amazing! How did your muffins turn out?
Hi there, am I able to use gluten free flour in this vegan lemon poppy seed muffin recipe?
Hi Hannah, they won’t work with a gluten-free all-purpose flour, but they may work with a 1:1 gluten-free flour such as King Arthur’s measure for measure. However, I haven’t tested it. I hope that helps!
Just made a batch of these muffins, they are delicious 😋. Just wondering if I reduce the sugar to 3/4 of cup will that change the texture? Also my mixture was little bit on the dry side, luckily the muffins are still moist and raised nicely. Overall I would recommend this receip!!
Hi Christina, I’m so glad that you enjoyed the muffins! Reducing the sugar to 3/4 cup will make the muffins a bit drier and denser. If your muffin batter was thicker than pictured, it could be from packing a little too much flour in the measuring cups, or the temperature of your ingredients. However, it’s great that your muffins still worked out well! Thanks for your feedback 🙂