Bright and fluffy lemon muffins are easy to prepare from scratch in only 40 minutes. They’re made with healthier whole wheat flour, and are eggless for a completely vegan muffin recipe. Here I share my step-by-step instructions with photos to make delicious sweet and tart lemon muffins for breakfast or a snack!
Table of Contents
About These Lemon Muffins
This easy recipe was developed on a whim one day when I was really craving something lemony. With just a handful of pantry staples I was able to whip up soft and delicious lemon muffins full of lemon flavor in under an hour.
In the recipe I have used olive oil, which creates a rich and smooth batter. And pairs great with the vibrant lemon citrus flavor! Since there are no eggs, butter, or dairy needed my simple recipe also happens to be completely vegan-friendly.
Making these muffins are pretty easy. You only need to sift the dry ingredients and then mix it in a lemon water solution. No stand mixer and no electric beater is required. All you need is a wired whisk to make the batter.
I’ve tested and tweaked this eggless lemon muffins recipe to be just right, and I am confident you’ll love it as much as I do!
How to Make Lemon Muffins
Prep and Make Lemon Solution
1. Line a muffin pan/muffin tin with muffin liners or muffin cups. You can also grease the pan with oil instead of using muffin liners.
2. Preheat the oven to 356 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degree Celsius). Rinse and dry a large lemon. Then zest the lemon with a zester or grater.
Only remove the yellow or green part of the peel and not the white. Set the lemon zest aside.
3. Halve and juice the lemon, straining out the seeds. You want ¼ cup lemon juice in total.
4. Add the juice to a mixing bowl or pan.
5. Now add ½ cup raw sugar to the lemon juice. You can swap raw sugar with white granulated sugar or muscovado sugar.
6. Stir, and then add ½ cup water.
7. With a wired whisk or spoon stir well, so that all of the sugar is dissolved within the lemon solution.
8. Add ¼ cup olive oil. You can also use softened butter (dairy or vegan plant-based spread) instead of oil or any other neutral flavored oil.
9. Whisk the oil briskly for 2 to 3 minutes into the lemon mixture until thoroughly combined.
Note that I have not added vanilla extract, but if you prefer add about ½ teaspoon vanilla extract at this step and mix well.
Sift Dry Ingredients
10. Now add 1 cup whole wheat flour (leveled, 120 grams) and ½ teaspoon baking powder in a sieve placed over a bowl or plate.
I am not a fan of baking soda and it is not needed to get a nice rise on the lemon muffins. However, for a more cake-y texture you can add ¼ teaspoon baking soda to the dry ingredients.
Note: You can use the Indian whole wheat flour (called atta) or the regular whole wheat flour and even whole wheat pastry flour in the recipe. If you are not a fan of whole wheat flour, then swap with all-purpose flour or pastry flour.
11. Sift the dry ingredients.
12. Then add the dry ingredients and 1 to 1.5 tablespoons of the lemon zest to the wet ingredients.
Make Muffin Batter
13. Stir together with a whisk, but use a gentle touch.
14. Everything should be mixed very well, but you do not want to over mix. Because there are no eggs in this recipe, the fluffiness comes from the combination of acid (lemon juice) and baking powder.
Keep in mind that if you blend too much the batter will fall flat when baked.
Bake Lemon Muffins
15. Pour the batter into the muffin liners to fill ⅔ of the way.
16. Bake the muffins in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. You can also bake them in a convection or microwave oven in the same amount of time.
But be sure to check them after 18 minutes to make sure they don’t over bake. To test for doneness insert a toothpick or bamboo skewer in the center of a lemon muffin. It should come out clean if they are completely baked.
17. After 4 to 5 minutes rested in the tin, transfer the lemon muffins to a wire rack to cool. From this recipe, you will get 8 medium sized muffins.
18. Serve these egg free and vegan lemon muffins as a sweet snack or dessert. You can also pack them in a lunch box as a sweet side snack!
Helpful Tips
- Lemons: Feel free to use any variety of lemons. You can also make these muffins with limes.
- Oil: Swap the olive oil, with a neutral flavored oil. Alternatively for a vegetarian muffin, you can use softened butter.
- Flour: If you like add all-purpose flour instead of whole wheat flour for a more lighter and softer crumb. You can also use regular whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour or the Indian atta flour that is used for making roti to make these muffins.
- Lemon glaze: If you prefer you can choose to frost these tangy sweet muffins with a lemon glaze icing. This is the recipe I follow: In a small bowl mix together ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar (or powdered sugar) with 1 tablespoon lemon juice and ½ teaspoon lemon zest. For a slightly thinner glaze, add 1 to 2 teaspoons more lemon juice. Drizzle this lemon glaze on the muffins.
- Scaling: The recipe can be scaled to make a smaller batch of 4 muffins or larger batches of 16 muffins or 24 muffins or more.
FAQs
I prefer whole wheat flour for a healthier muffin and delicious crumb, but you certainly can use all-purpose flour or pastry flour instead.
Yes, if you are not adhering to a strict vegan diet you can use melted butter or ghee in place of the olive oil. Or, to keep the recipe vegan, simply use your preferred melted dairy-free plant-based butter alternative.
Lemon muffins will keep well for at least a week in the refrigerator. Store in an airtight container and keep in the fridge.
Definitely. As-is this lemon muffin recipe yields 8 treats. Double the ingredients to make 16 muffins, or triple to make 2 dozen (24) lemon muffins.
More Eggless Muffins To Try!
Cake Recipes
Dessert Recipes
Dessert Recipes
Dessert Recipes
Please be sure to rate the recipe in the recipe card or leave a comment below if you have made it. For more vegetarian inspirations, Sign Up for my emails or follow me on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter.
Lemon Muffins (Eggless, Whole Wheat)
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole wheat flour – leveled – 120 grams
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ cup raw sugar or white sugar – 80 grams
- ½ cup water
- ¼ cup olive oil or any neutral oil
- ¼ cup lemon juice – juice extracted from 1 large lemon or 2 medium lemons or 3 medium limes
- 1 to 1.5 tablespoons lemon zest
Instructions
Preparation
- Line a muffin pan with muffin liners. You can also grease the pan with oil instead of using muffin liners.
- Now rinse a large lemon first. Wipe dry and then zest the lemon with a zester or grater. Keep the lemon zest aside. Only remove the yellow or green part of the peel and not the white pith. Also preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 356 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Halve the lemon and squeeze it to get its juice. You should get about ¼ cup lemon juice. Do measure the juice quantity as ¼ cup is required for this recipe.
Making Batter
- Take the lemon juice in a mixing bowl or pan.
- Now add the raw sugar to the lemon juice.
- Add water. With a wired whisk begin to stir so that all the sugar granules are dissolved in the lemon solution.
- Add olive oil. With a wired whisk stir briskly for 2 to 3 minutes so that the oil is mixed evenly with the lemon juice and sugar solution.
- Now take a plate or tray. Place a sieve on it. Add whole wheat flour and add baking powder.
- Sift the dry ingredients onto the tray and plate.
- Now add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Also add the lemon zest.
- With light hands stir well. Be quick to stir. Everything should be mixed very well. But don’t over do the mixing.
- Pour the batter in the muffin liners up-to ⅔.
Baking Lemon Muffins
- Bake the muffins at 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit) for 20 to 25 minutes. Since the temperatures in all the ovens are not the same, do keep a check while baking.
- A toothpick or bamboo skewer inserted in the muffins should come out clean.
- After 4 to 5 minutes, place the lemon muffins on a wire rack to cool. From this recipe you will get 8 medium sized lemon muffins.
- Serve these egg free lemon muffins as a sweet snack or dessert. You can also pack one or two muffins in the tiffin box as a side sweet snack.
Notes
- The recipe works with any variety of lemons. You can also make it with limes.
- In place of olive oil, you can use a neutral oil. For a vegetarian option, you can use softened butter.
- All-purpose flour can be swapped with whole wheat flour for a more lighter and softer crumb. You can also use the regular whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour or the Indian atta flour that is used for making roti.
- The recipe can be scaled to make 16 muffins or 24 muffins or more.
- You can also choose to frost these muffins with a lemon glaze icing. To make the lemon glaze mix ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar (or powdered sugar), 1 tablespoon lemon juice and ½ teaspoon lemon zest in a bowl. For a slightly thin consistency, add 1 to 2 teaspoons more lemon juice. Then drizzle this lemon glaze on the muffins when they are cooled.
- Add ½ teaspoon vanilla extract to the lemon solution if you prefer.
Nutrition Info (Approximate Values)
This Lemon Muffins post from the archives (July 2015) has been republished and updated on 8 October 2021.
Hello 🙂 I am. A big a fan of your blog! I only turn to your blog for any recipe I want! I was wondering if the same recipe could be used to make a cake instead?
thanks nandita. i am not sure if the batter can be used to make cake as this muffin batter is on the thinner side. you will need to give a try, but i do not know how the final result will be.
Hi! I just baked this recipe in a loaf tray and it came out perfectly!
Sheerja, glad to know this.
Hi,
I tried this recipe as a cake but didn’t get good results. Outer crust was fine but inside it was uncooked & sticky. I used melted ghee instead of oil. But while mixing everything finally, it became a thick batter, I think ghee solidified again due to cold winter temp (I melted it before using). I used a measuring scale for all things. I used khandsari in place of sugar and since it is less sweet I increased it to 100g. Cake pan was 5 inch round pan. Any idea what might’ve gone wrong??
I posted this query just few min back also but had a server problem upon submission, hence writing again.
ruchi, even if you use melted ghee and it solidifies, then too it should not cause any issue. as when baking a few cakes, even i have faced this, but the cake has turned out good. the batter is not thick. so here i guess, some more water can be added. but even if the batter is thick, the cake or muffins should turn out with a nice texture. i presume the batter here is cooked, but looks sticky. this is due to the leavening not happening in the batter properly. there can be two issues here. one is the freshness of baking powder. and the second one is too much of mixing, which has causes gluten to develop in the batter. both can lead to a cake not risen or well risen and have a dense doughy texture. for whole wheat flour and eggless cake batters always avoid mixing too much. also mix with light pressure coming from the hands.
yes sometimes, we do have technical errors. but i can see your comment and hence replied to it.
Hi Dassana.
Have made these a few times and we all love it. Made them for dussehra function in the society and frosted them with a lemon cream cheese frosting and they were sold in no time.
thank you lopamudra for this feedback. nice to know and i am sure lemon cheese frosting would have been so good on the lemon muffins.
Can small steel containers, lined inside with aluminium foil, be used for making muffins in pressure cooker?
Also, can cakes be made from muffin’s recipe & vice-versa?
i think you can. but then you have to line the foil very neatly. otherwise the cake batter seeps outside the lined foil and there won’t be a neat look & finish on the muffins from outside. you can also use idli pans. here the muffins will be in shape of idlis. actually it depends on the recipe. from some cake recipes muffins can be made. but i think to prepare cake from a muffin recipe is a bit tricky.
Idli pans is a wonderful idea! More so because our idli pan hasn’t been put to use since forever… Shape isn’t much of an issue with us; in fact, then the muffins can be packed in greater numbers in small tiffins
welcome ruchi. yes it can be packed in more numbers.
Hi. Cake looks yum. Can the measurements be doubled?
Also, can this batter be used to bake a regular cake instead of in muffin liners?
anusha, i am not sure of doubling the measurements. but you can make a regular cake.
Hello ..can you plz suggest me what kind of muffin mould to b used for OTG
i use a muffin tray made from aluminum and they work well. i also have a non stick one. even the non stick one is good. but with non stick you have to be careful as nothing should scratch its surface. also for both aluminium and non stick you can always use paper muffins liners.
Looks yummy 🙂
Thank You for such a simple recipe, I am a beginner in baking, the muffins turned out to be nice lemony ones.
thank You for such great recipes, these are the inspiration for the amateur Bakers like me.
pleased to know this pratishtha 🙂 thankyou for your kind and positive words.
Hi
Nice recipe.. one quick question.. will reducing sugar affect the texture of cake.. Hw much sugar can I reduce in a baking recipe. .
savitha reducing sugar would lessen the sweetness in the cake so it’s upto you. hope this help’s also to a some extent it may impact the texture of the cake.
Hey loved the recipe.. Can i use jaggery in place of sugar ???
yes you can add jaggery.
A novice baker, looking for quick bake recipes , chanced upon your site n tried the eggless banana cake, eggless orange cake with jaggery , will be trying the lemon one today! Awesome recipes both the cakes turned out moist , not too dense , not too sweet! Thnx for posting these recipes loved them!!
Shubhi
thank you shubhangi. pleased to know. do give the feedback on the muffins as well. happy baking 🙂
Hello
I tried this recepie in muffinliners only but instead of one I stacked 4 liners . it came out well. Can u pls share the recepie of royal icing?? And can we substitute icing sugar with any thing?
thanks anjana for the feedback. you can use powdered sugar also instead of icing sugar. honey also can be used. depends upon the icing that you are making. have taken a note of royal icing recipe.
Hi…
I have muffin cups but not mould… Can I try this recepie in a baking tray with cupcake liners on it??
anjana the cup cake liners without moulds may turn flat or the batter might spill. instead bake them in a small loaf pan. hope this help’s you.
I love all your recipes. They just work wonderfully for me. Keep up your good work
thankyou jayashree 🙂 and you are welcome.
Hello, can I use the same batter for baking a cake rather than cupcakes.
you can try. i have not made a cake or loaf. but the recipe should work.
I tried the batter for making a cake and it turned out to be perfect. I had always struggled for a perfect lemon cake recipe, finally I have found one. Thank you so much. 🙂
thanks a lot nikita 🙂
What size cake tin would I need to use if I want to make it as a cake?
7×4 inches pan will work for the proportions mentioned in the recipe.