Ingredients:
3/4 cup coconut flour (level measurement, not heaping)
3/4 cup maple syrup, at room temperature (or you can use ANY sweetener of choice here!!)
1/4 cup melted coconut oil (I also like to sometimes use ghee and some people use grass-fed butter instead)
6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Zest of a whole lemon (though I often add in extra lemon OR I use my lemon essential oil which is wonderful)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
6 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or two!)
2 tablespoons poppy seeds (I like adding a little extra) : )
Creamy Lemon Glaze:
1/4 cup raw cashew butter (OR I have also used coconut butter or even thick coconut cream refrigerated to thicken and solidify)
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or sweetener of choice)
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 to 3 teaspoons water, as needed to thin
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF and line a standard muffin tin with 12 baking cups. (I use silicone for best stick prevention.)
Make sure your maple syrup and eggs are at room temperature. You can place the eggs in a bowl of warm tap water for a few minutes to help warm them up quickly. This will ensure that your muffin batter will be runny, like traditional muffin batter, and will easily mix and pour into the muffin cups. (Otherwise the coconut oil may harden and won't mix evenly into the batter.) In a large bowl, combine the coconut flour, maple syrup, coconut oil, lemon juice and zest, salt, baking soda, eggs, and vanilla, and use a whisk to stir the batter until smooth. The whisk should help break up any clumps, making the batter very smooth. Stir in the poppy seeds, then divide the batter evenly among the 12 baking cups.
Bake at 350ºF until the centers are firm to the touch and the edges are lightly golden, about 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely before topping with the icing below.
To prepare the Creamy Lemon Icing, stir together the cashew butter, maple syrup, and lemon juice in a small bowl until smooth. Add water 1 teaspoon at a time, as needed to thin the icing to your liking. Drizzle it over the top of each muffin just before serving.
Leftover muffins can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.
Substitution notes:
Flour: Since the muffins are made with coconut flour, I don’t recommend making many modifications to this recipe– coconut flour is SO tricky to work with and cannot be substituted for all-purpose flour, almond flour, or any other flour that I know of. If you’re put-off by the amount of eggs this recipe calls for, you could try substituting a 1/4 cup of applesauce or a flax or chia egg for 1 of the eggs in this recipe, but I wouldn’t stray too far from the number of eggs called for, as they provide the structure of this recipe. Flax and chia eggs rarely work in coconut flour recipes because they don’t rise and firm up in the same manner that chicken eggs do. If you do decide to try working with a vegan egg, make sure you’re prepared for a different results– the centers of the muffins might remain gooey inside.
