Sourdough Lemon Muffins: Quick Sourdough Recipe

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Sourdough lemon muffins combine the delicious zingy tang of lemons with the goodness of sourdough to bring you a taste sensation.

These sourdough lemon muffins have a tender, cakey crumb and a crunchy top that's drizzled with a lemon glaze. Seriously, you won't be able to stop at just one!

This recipe uses 200g of sourdough starter - you can use fed, active starter or you can use discard. Whatever you have on hand.

If you are building a new starter, this is a great recipe to use a lot of discard in one hit (as long as your starter is at least 7 days old). Other muffin flavors include orange cranberry sourdough muffins and long fermented blueberry sourdough muffins. If you prefer a savory muffin, you might like these sourdough zucchini muffins with cheese and chives or these sourdough English muffins.

How To Make Sourdough Lemon Muffins

Muffins made with sourdough starter are pretty easy. These lemon sourdough muffins take just a few minutes to throw together. With baking time, they can be done in under 30 minutes!

One of the most important things to do to make these muffins shine is make sure you use unwaxed lemons. If you can get a lemon from someone's lemon tree it will give your muffins the most amazing taste and fragrance.

How to make sourdough lemon muffins:

  1. Preheat your oven.
  2. Mix the sourdough starter, eggs, oil, lemon juice and vanilla together in a bowl. Make sure you mix them together really well and that the eggs are well beaten.
  3. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, lemon zest and sugar in a separate bowl.
  4. Now pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients.
  5. Use a spatula and mix them until they are just combined – do not over mix!!
  6. Spoon the muffin batter into a greased 12 hole muffin tin.
  7. Bake until golden.
  8. While the muffins are baking, mix the powdered sugar and lemon juice together.
  9. Spoon the glaze over the sourdough muffins while they are still hot in the muffin tin.
  10. Allow the glaze to soak in and the muffins to cool before removing from the tin.
The lemon glaze is optional but really adds to the zesty lemon flavor of these sourdough muffins.

Does Sourdough Discard Spoil?

You can choose to make these sourdough lemon muffins with fed, active starter or sourdough discard.

Sourdough discard is just unfed sourdough starter. For more sourdough terminology, check out this sourdough glossary.

If you leave unfed sourdough starter on the kitchen counter for a long time, it will eventually be overtaken by bad bacteria and mold, rendering it unusable.

Discard does eventually spoil because it has no more food to feed the bacteria and yeast in the sourdough starter.

Keeping sourdough discard in the fridge will give it a longer life, however because you aren't feeding it, it will eventually become very sour and even develop hooch.

Try to use up discard within a 2 week period, even if it's kept in the refrigerator. After this, it may become too sour and will impart an unpleasant flavor into baked goods.

There are so many ways you can use your discard - you'll find a tonne of sourdough discard recipes here.

Do You Feed Sourdough Discard?

In a word - no! If you do feed sourdough discard - it becomes active sourdough starter. You discard your starter right before you feed. If you don't discard your starter, it will grow exponentially and take over your kitchen.

Discarding also regulates acidity levels in your sourdough starter.

Try to resist the temptation to feed your sourdough discard - read this if you would like more information on this topic.

Instead of feeding your sourdough discard - bake with it!

Tips For Successful Sourdough Muffins

  • Don't over mix the batter. Ensure that the wet ingredients are well combined before you pour into the dry ingredients. Use a silicone spatula to just combine them. If you over mix the batter the muffins will be tough and chewy.
  • Don't use sourdough discard that's really old and sour - it will give you an unpleasant flavor in your muffins.
  • If you want to make these muffins, but don't have 200g of starter or discard, these instructions will show you how to increase the amount of starter you have on hand.
  • Use the freshest lemons possible - they are best if you pick them from a tree to ensure the rind has no wax or chemicals added.
Tender cakey sourdough lemon muffins

Flavor Variations for Sourdough Lemon Muffins

While these sourdough lemon muffins are perfect in their simplicity, you could also jazz them up with these flavor variations:

  • add a few teaspoons of poppy seeds to the dry ingredients before pouring in the wet ingredients to make sourdough lemon and poppyseed muffins.
  • top the batter with some flaked almonds before you place them into the oven.
  • adding orange zest as well as lemon zest will give you lovely citrus sourdough muffins.
  • add 100g of white chocolate chips to the dry ingredients before pouring in the wet ingredients to make white chocolate and lemon sourdough muffins.
  • add some frozen or dried blueberries for a version of sourdough lemon and blueberry muffins.
  • add a few handfuls of tinned pineapple pieces to the dry ingredients before you pour the liquid ingredients in.

Further Reading

If you love this recipe for sourdough lemon muffins, you might enjoy some of these ideas:

Sourdough lemon muffins pin image
Sourdough lemon muffins

Sourdough Lemon Muffins

These simple to make sourdough lemon muffins make a delicious snack any time of the day. The zesty fragrance and flavor of lemon shine bright in these sourdough muffins.
4.34 from 220 votes
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Servings 12 Muffins
Calories 203 kcal

Equipment

  • Mixing Bowl
  • Digital Scales
  • 12 Hole Muffin Tin

Ingredients  

  • 200 g Sourdough Starter Discard or Active Starter
  • 200 g All Purpose Flour
  • 70 g Sugar
  • 2 Eggs
  • 6 g Baking Powder (1 tsp)
  • 100 g Vegetable Oil Light flavor
  • 20 g Lemon Zest zest of whole lemon
  • 20 g Lemon Juice
  • 5 g Vanilla Extract
  • 5 g Salt (1 tsp)

Lemon Glaze

  • 60 g Powdered Sugar
  • 20 g Lemon Juice

Instructions 

  • Preheat oven to 180C/350F and grease a 12 hole muffin tin with butter.
  • Mix the sourdough starter, eggs, lemon juice, vanilla extract and oil in a bowl. Whisk together until well combined. It's ok if the oil sits on the top, it will combine once it is poured into the dry ingredients.
  • In a separate bowl mix together all purpose flour, salt, baking powder, lemon zest and sugar.
  • Now pour the liquid ingredient mixture into the dry ingredients. Gently fold together until just mixed - don't over mix or the muffins will be tough.
  • Spoon mixture into greased muffin tin. This recipe will fill a 12 hole muffin (each hole around ¾ full).
  • Bake at 180C/350F for approximately 20 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.
  • While the muffins are baking, mix together the powdered sugar and lemon juice.
  • Once the muffins are cooked, spoon the lemon glaze onto the muffins while they are still in the muffin tin. Let the lemon glaze soak into the muffins and cool slightly before removing them from the tin.

Notes

The topping for these muffins is completely optional. If making for kids lunchboxes or snack time, it's absolutely fine to leave them out. They are sweet enough without it.
 
 

Nutrition

Calories: 203kcal Carbohydrates: 27g Protein: 3g Fat: 9g Saturated Fat: 7g Trans Fat: 1g Cholesterol: 27mg Sodium: 226mg Potassium: 35mg Fiber: 1g Sugar: 11g Vitamin A: 41IU Vitamin C: 3mg Calcium: 39mg Iron: 1mg
Tried this recipe?Share your creation with us @ThePantryMama or tag #thepantrymama!

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4.34 from 220 votes (207 ratings without comment)

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16 Comments

  1. This recipe calls for 20g lemon zest. Is this a misprint? I am using the zest from one lemon and hope that is correct.

    1. Yes that's correct. I use homegrown lemons and love a super lemony flavor so 20g is good 🙂 But just use what you have.

  2. 5 stars
    I was gifted some lemons, so decided to make these muffins. It's the first time I've tried a Pantry Mama recipe. And, seriously, they were incredible!

    Such a versatile recipe. I tried to make them healthier so I substituted in wholemeal flour and coconut sugar in the same quantities as the recipe. And I had half an orange in the fridge, so I added the zest and juice of that too. They were so perfect! It felt like the recipe was so robust I could have made so many tweaks and they still would have been incredible.

    1. 5 stars
      This recipe is AMAZING!! I didn’t have fresh lemons on hand but wanted to make these so I subbed organic bottled lemon juice, I added half the amount of zest because that’s what I had frozen already and added poopy seeds. Oooooh they were delicious! The lemon flavor was perfect and the texture was light and airy. I did use the lemon drizzle on top…made them so decadent!!

  3. 5 stars
    Very easy and delicious! Pretty sure I over mixed as they are very dense but will try again as the flavor is amazing.

  4. 5 stars
    Thank you for this great discard recipe… These muffins are delicious!!! I added 2 tsp of poppy seeds… so delicious!

  5. 5 stars
    These muffins are soft and delicious! I used honey, olive oil, doubled the lemon juice and zested 5 lemons. I was not able to get a full 12. I measured everything in grams on my scale. Any suggestions? Also the recipe says 20g of zest- I had about 5 with the 5 lemons of zested. They’re a bright happy muffin for anytime of year! Have you ever added lavender?

  6. 5 stars
    Delicious. Very moist and fluffy. I substituted monk fruit sweeteners for the muffins and glaze plus added poppy seeds. This recipe is a keeper.

  7. 5 stars
    I had some sourdough discard I need to use and a lemon. Thought I would try these. Used a mini muffin tin and it made 30 small muffins. The glaze is a must. Cooked for approximately 12 min. These were fabulous.

  8. 5 stars
    A friend gifted me a very happy starter yesterday, and this was my first sourdough recipe ever!
    I had little hands helping so I believe it got a little over mixed, but they are still so delicious. This recipe was so easy too, I feel a lot less intimidated to venture into all that is sourdough. Looking forward to trying more!

  9. What a delicious muffin! The texture, taste and visual appeal are outstanding!
    Thank you for sharing the recipe!

  10. 5 stars
    This is an amazing recipe! I doubled it and baked it in a bread loaf pan. I added salted caramel macadamia nuts and used macadamia nut oil! WOW this was such a delicious loaf of lemony perfection!!!

  11. 5 stars
    This recipe is unbelievable! I subbed half of the oil (I used avocado oil) for 50g of cottage cheese to add protein, added almost double the zest which was a mix of orange and lemon and added blueberries and OMG! Will be in my regular rotation. Thank you!!

  12. 5 stars
    Just made. Added 50 grams of fresh picked blueberries that I heated and mashed prior to letting cool and adding. The results are fantastic. Love this recipe.

  13. 3 stars
    Just made these but unhappy with the turn out, they very bread/scone like muffins is this right they are not spongy

  14. 5 stars
    I've been looking for a discard recipe that doesn't use loads of ingredients I don't have, uses a decent amount of discard and is quick and easy. This was perfect and I'll definitely be making them again.