Easy, fluffy, lemony and moist from creamy ricotta cheese, this is the only lemon muffins recipe you need!
Today is a great day to crank up the oven and make the ultimate Lemon Muffins from scratch!
Welcome to Muffin School dear ones!
if you landed on this page, I suspect you might be really fond of muffins. Which is great, because today we are going to implement all those secrets we learned when making the ultimate blueberry muffins, and apply them to today’s Lemon Muffins Recipe.
We want these to be the absolute best lemon muffins on the planet! We want them to be real lemony, light, fluffy and moist, just like a good piece of cake.
For that we will need our secret key ingredient to epic muffins: the ricotta cheese!
If you don’t believe in my magical secret ingredient, then I dare you to bake any muffin recipe without ricotta and then compare, see what happens.
Trust me kids, creamy whole milk ricotta cheese is your best friend and greatest ally. A big thank you to the grass-fed cows, amen! But just in case you are in the mood for pancakes, you should do them the right way too, using ricotta cheese of course, like Amanda did in her awesome recipe.
This Lemon Muffins Recipe is easy breezy even a kid could do it!
All you need to do is follow the simple step by step directions. What a fun kid project this would be for the weekend, right? Just like these lemon bars.
To make your life easy I recommend using paper baking cups, the ones you can just place on a tray and pop in the oven, no cleaning involved. Just peel them off of the side of the muffins and voila! Perfection staring you in the face.
Worth noting that the recipe calls for extra light olive oil, but you can use coconut oil at room temperature too, meaning in liquid form.
Last but not least:
Remember to fold the dry and the wet ingredients together, fold them gently and in return they will give you the finest lemon muffins recipe you ever made!
Poppy fans all over the world:
- You are welcome to add a couple of tablespoons of poppy seeds to the dry ingredients in the recipe.
- Sprinkle some over the top as soon as you drizzle the glaze.
- Decorate your muffins with some pretty edible flowers or sprinkles, whatever tickles your fancy really.
- Don’t forget the glaze or lemon icing!
P.S. If you are making these in the fall, you can turn them into cranberry muffins by simply folding about 1.5 cups of fresh cranberries into the batter.Or try this Greek yogurt cake instead 🙂
Ricotta Lemon Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lemon -zested
- 3/4 c granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 c all purpose flour
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
- The seeds from 1 vanilla bean
- 3/4 c whole milk ricotta cheese
- 4 tbsp whole milk
- 1/3 c extra light olive oil
- 1 large egg
- 12 leaves lemon balm or mint (for garnish)
Lemon Glaze/Icing
- 1/2 c powder sugar
- 2-3 tbsp lemon juice freshly squeezed
- Zest from 1 lemon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375”F. Have a baking sheet set up with the muffins cups on top.
- In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, lemon zest and baking powder and set aside.
- In a separate bowl stir together the egg, ricotta cheese, milk, olive oil, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and the vanilla seeds. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and using a large spatula fold to combine until incorporated. It will be a thick batter.
- Using two teaspoons, divide the muffin batter between the 12 muffin paper cups filling them 3/4 of the way up.
- Bake them for 18-20 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Transfer them to a cooling rack and let them rest until cold.
- Meanwhile prepare the Lemon Glaze by whisking the powder sugar and lemon juice together until smooth. Spoon over the cooled muffins and sprinkle with the reserved lemon zest. Garnish each muffin with a tiny mint leaf or lemon balm if available.
You’ll Also Love:
Blueberry Lemon Olive Oil Bread
Ricotta Cake
Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Lemon Ricotta Cookies
These Ricotta Lemon muffins look and sound amazing. I’m practically drooling on my keyboard. I want to serve these at my next brunch, I know they’ll be an instant hit.
I hope you do and sen me some pics. I can never make enough of them !
I love the citrus flavor, so refreshing and I love baking with ricotta so these are a winner for me!
Ricotta forever 😉
Can vanilla beans be substituted for vanilla extract? Just to save me a trip to the store for this batch…
Yes you can, use 2 tsp of vanilla extract instead. Vanilla beans can be very pricey so i save them for extra special occasions myself. They have a unique touch, but most of the times vanilla extract will do the job just fine. These lemon muffins are really good even without vanilla 😉
For some reason when I look at the recipe I can’t see how much olive oil is needed. Can you clarify please?
For some reason when I look at the recipe I can’t see how much olive oil is needed. Can you clarify please?
Hi Vanessa, you will need 1/3 cup extra virgin or extra light olive oil. There must be a glitch with the recipe plugin If you are not able to see the measurements. Let me know if you still need help ~ Florentina
Hi Florentina,
Could you please clarify that in No. 2 whether you put lemon zest or lemon juice in with eggs etc? I can’t find a second lemon zest in the ingredients, just the juice, but no mention of when to add the juice.
Many thanks…these sound divine ❤
Iringa
Hi Iringa, you can mix the zest with the dry ingredients in step 2 or with the egg and cheese wet ingredients in step 3. Doesn’t really make a difference. Also I add some lemon zest in the glaze. Let me know how they come out, we love ricotta muffins ~ Florentina
I added the lemon juice with the zest to the eggs etc and it worked out well. I also put zest on top of the icing.
They were DELICIOUS! ❤❤
Woohoo, awesome! I can’t keep these ricotta cookie around for more than a couple of hours.
This was the first time I ever made muffins and I am OBSESSED! They were SUPER easy to make! I used coconut milk instead of whole milk and the vanilla extract instead of the vanilla beans. I thought they tasted even better after letting them sit overnight! Thank you so much for sharing! I will definitely be making them again!
Can you use part skim ricotta?
Yes, part skim would work fine too 🙂
Hello Florentina! Just wondering if these muffins can be made ahead of time and Frozen? Or how long would they stay fresh for? Thank you can’t wait to make these!
Hi Cristy, I usually make them the same day or the night before and just store on the kitchen counter cover with aluminum foil. The magic here comes from that fluffy ricotta cheese in the mix which is at its best the day you make them. I hope that answers your question 🙂 ~Florentina Xo’s
What is all,purpose flour ? Is it plain or self-raising? And can I use spelt flour?
Hi Deborah, just plain flour, NOT self-rising. I never made them with spelt flour so I can’t really say..Let me know If you do experiment with that! Enjoy! ~ Florentina
Hi! I am just wondering, your instructions say to put the paper muffin cups on top of the baking sheet, however, can I just use a cupcake pan instead and line those with baking cups?
Yes you can 🙂
Just made these and I have to say- they are delicious!! The glaze adds a really lovely touch! Highly recommend.
These muffins translate well to being gluten free. Simply use gluten free flour and add an extra egg. You can also add about 3/4 tsp of xanthan gum if you wish. Delicious!
These look delicious. Since it doesn’t specify I’m assuming that these are regular size muffins and not mini?? If I want to make mini muffins do you think this recipe will make 24 minis? I realize I may have to adjust the baking time.
Thank you!
Yes they are regular size, you should be able to get about 20 minis.
Divine! Turned out perfect. I used vanilla extract too. Super easy. Great instructions. Thank you!!
I was very excited about these muffins but was concerned by the huge amount of baking powder. Should’ve gone with my gut instinct as all I can taste is the tinniness of baking powder. Suggest people tone down the amount of baking powder used as it will make the muffins so much more delicious.
I just made these and they delicious can’t wait to try some other muffins with the ricotta ♥️
These turned out great! I added less sugar and didn’t add the frosting so my daughter (14 months) could also enjoy them!