Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cornmeal, poppy seeds, baking powder and salt.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the yogurt, eggs, lemon zest and butter together. Stir in the lemon juice. The mixture may curdle a bit, but this is fine.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring just until the flour mixture is incorporated. Over stirring will cause dry, tough muffins.
5. Divide the batter equally among 12 paper-lined muffin cups. Tip: try these parchment paper muffin liners!
6. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.
7. While the muffins are baking, make the simple syrup by heating the sugar and lemon juice in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When the sugar has dissolved and the syrup has thickened slightly, remove from the heat and stir in the lemon zest.
8. Brush the lemon simple syrup mixture over the top of each still-warm muffin after removing them from the oven. Allow to cool for five minutes and then remove to a cooling rack.