Ricotta Lemon Muffins Recipe (2025)

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Easy, fluffy, lemony and moist from creamy ricotta cheese, this is the only lemon muffins recipe you need!

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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, becausetoday we are going to implement all those secrets we learnedwhen 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 (5)

4.85 from 13 votes

Ricotta Lemon Muffins Recipe

Easy, fluffy, lemony and moist from creamy ricotta cheese, this is the only lemon muffins recipe you need!

Print Recipe

Prep Time:10 minutes mins

Cook Time:20 minutes mins

Total Time:30 minutes mins

Ingredients

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.

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 12

Author: Florentina

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Ricotta Lemon Muffins Recipe (2025)

FAQs

What is the secret to moist muffins? ›

How to Make Homemade Muffins Moist: Our Top Tips
  1. Tips to Make Homemade Muffins Moist.
  2. Keep Wet and Dry Ingredients Separately.
  3. Add All Flavorings Last.
  4. Consider Paper Liners.
  5. Don't Overfill the Muffin Cups.
  6. Check the Temperature of Your Oven.
  7. Test if Muffins Are Fully Cooked.
  8. Top Your Muffins with Flavor.
Aug 9, 2021

What is the secret to high muffins? ›

Chilling your muffin batter overnight in the fridge is the BEST thing you can do for amazing muffins. It makes them more moist, tender, and TALLER! It's very similar to chilling cookie dough, which if you know me you know I'm obsessed with chilling cookie dough. Think of it like marinating.

What makes muffins peak? ›

Peaked Tops
  1. Ingredients were overmixed. SOLUTION. ...
  2. Too much batter in muffin cup. SOLUTION. ...
  3. Uneven oven heating. SOLUTION. ...
  4. Oven temperature too hot. SOLUTION. ...
  5. At high altitudes, leavening gases expand more and liquids foam more quickly, causing muffins to rise more during baking. SOLUTION.

Are muffins better with oil or butter? ›

It is possible to replace oil with butter in a muffin recipe as generally most muffin recipes are quite forgiving and you may find that butter gives a better flavour.

What not to do when making muffins? ›

Overmixing the batter.

When you overmix the batter, it crushes the air bubbles and ruins the fluffy texture. → Follow this tip: To ensure a batch of light, fluffy muffins, mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until just barely combined, and no more dry flour is visible.

What does adding an extra egg do to muffins? ›

If there isn't enough egg, your batter or dough may not be able to hold its structure or could end up overly dry or dense. On the other hand, if there is too much egg, your baked goods could lose their shape due to excess liquid, or have a rubbery (or even overly cakey) texture depending on the recipe.

Should muffin batter rest before baking? ›

Rest the Muffin Batter

The first, most hands-off way to make your muffins pop (literally) is to let the batter rest. Make the batter, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let the batter rest at room temperature for about 1 hour. If you're short on time, just 30 minutes can make a difference.

What is the most common flaw when baking muffins? ›

Over-mixing your muffin batter

Overmixing your ingredients also means beating too much air out of your batter.

What temperature do you bake muffins at? ›

Bake at 350°F (177°C) the whole time. Standard Size Muffins or Mini Muffins: For standard size muffins baked in a 12-count muffin pan, reduce baking time to about 20 total minutes: 5 initial minutes at 425°F and 15 minutes at 350°F. Yields 14-15 standard size muffins.

How to get domed muffin tops? ›

Giving your muffins a boost of extra hot heat (220C/420F) when they first go in the oven helps the outside of the muffin to set quickly whilst the inside of the muffin continues to rise, resulting in the muffin top/domed look.

How to keep muffins moist? ›

If muffins are left exposed, the moisture starts to leak from them and they dry out. To store muffins up to 4 days, line an airtight container or zip-lock bag with paper towel and store the muffins in a single layer. Place another layer of paper towel on top of the muffins as well.

What can I add to muffin mix to make it moist? ›

Sour Cream or Plain Yogurt: Sour cream helps keep the muffins extra moist. If needed, you can use plain yogurt instead. Sugar: Use granulated sugar to sweeten these muffins. I used to use some brown sugar and some white granulated sugar, but brown sugar weighed the muffins down.

How to make muffins more moist after baking? ›

Use a steamer. Steaming is a great way to add moisture to past-their-prime muffins. And according to a TikTok user, you should also be steaming your muffins when you bake them since the hot air and steam allow more time for the centers to rise, resulting in tender and airy muffins.

How to get domed muffins? ›

I suggest baking your muffins at 400 F. I know most muffin recipes (including the ones I have used previously) all tell us to preheat our ovens to between 325-375 F. That heat range is just not enough. While it will surely cook your muffins, it will not give you the full rise that you want.

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