– ½ cup + 1 tablespoon pure cane sugar – 2 medium lemons, preferably organic (you’ll need the zest of both and the juice of one) – 1 ½ cups white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour – ¼ cup poppy seed – 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder – ¼ teaspoon baking soda – ½ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt – 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled – ¾ cup plain yogurt (plain Greek yogurt works, too) – 1 large egg (update 3/20/14: use 2 eggs for richer and slightly fluffier, more cupcake-like muffins) – 1 teaspoon vanilla extract – 2 teaspoons turbinado sugar for sprinkling on top
Preheat oven to 375��F. Butter or non-stick spray your muffin pan. Grease only the bottoms and halfway up the cups to prevent muffin tops from flattening during baking.
Mix sugar and lemon zest in a medium bowl. Rub the zest into sugar with your fingers until it's fragrant and pale yellow. Mix in flour, poppy seeds, baking powder, soda, and salt.
Mix the butter, yoghurt, egg, vanilla, and the juice of one of your bald lemons together in a smaller bowl that is separate from the big one. Put the liquid ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients.
Mix them together with a big spoon. Just stir the flour into the liquid until it's all mixed in. Fill each of the 12 muffin cups with the same amount of batter.
The batter will be thick, but the muffins will turn out great. Keep cups to three-fourths full. Dust the muffins with turbinado sugar and remove any sugar between the cups.
Bake muffins for 16–19 minutes until tops are golden and toothpicks come out clean. After 5 minutes in the muffin pan, carefully transfer the muffins to a baking rack to finish cooling.