muffinish

December 15, 2005 10:27 AM

So...what are your favorite muffin-type recipes? And what do you do to keep them from becoming chewy rocks?
posted by casarkos to Food & Drink (13 answers total)

Ginger-Pear Muffins

1-3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
6 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1-1/2 teaspoons Egg Replacer + 2 tablespoons warm water, mixed
3/4 cup soymilk
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 small pear (anjou or comice), chopped coarsely
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, chopped into small bits

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Prepare twelve 2-1/2" muffin cups and set aside. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and set aside.

In another bowl, combine the Egg Replacer, soymilk, and oil. Add the liquid mixture all at once to the dry mixture. Stir until just moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold the pear and the crystallized ginger into the batter.

Spoon batter into muffin cups; each cup should be 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

This is a vegan recipe. It would take 1 egg if you wish to use that. Also, you can use regular milk in place of soymilk</small?
posted by smich at 10:56 AM on December 15, 2005

At the risk of being unrelated, our dorm cafeteria makes chocolate chip muffins with some form of cappuccino in them. They're one of the more edible things they make.
posted by adamwolf at 10:56 AM on December 15, 2005

Alton Brown on Good Eats says that chewy rocks are usually the result of overmixing, which creates gluten and big, unevenly distributed air bubbles.
posted by Jeanne at 11:02 AM on December 15, 2005

Absolutely do not overmix your muffin mixture. It doesn't matter if you still see flour and suchlike. When making a mix for 12 regular size muffins I do 10 turns of my spatula in the bowl, and that's all.
posted by gaspode at 11:05 AM on December 15, 2005

I like the Moosewood Muffins combinations.

Generally speaking with muffins, you can replace half the fat with applesauce to cut down on the calories.
posted by hazyjane at 11:30 AM on December 15, 2005

Half? Hell, I replaced all of the oil in my last batch with applesauce and they turned out fantastic.

Here's the recipe...

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup applesauce (instead of canola oil)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 15 oz. can pumpkin
1 12 oz. package semi-sweet mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs and sugar. Mix in rest of the ingredients. Spray muffin pans with non-stick cooking spray. Fill each section 3/4 full. Bake in pre-heated oven approximately 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes about 24 medium muffins.
posted by MsVader at 11:39 AM on December 15, 2005

We don't make no stinkin' muffins.

Scones !!!!

Mix together:
3 c unbleached AP flour
1/3 c. sugar
1 t. salt
1tbs baking powder

In separate bowl mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil or melted butter
1 c. buttermilk

Add dry ingredients to wet, add 1/2 c. dried or fresh fruit and/or nuts

Mix quickly, lightly together until liquid is absorbed.

Turn out onto a floured board and turn just 4 or 5 times

Pat into dinner plate sized round, cut into wedges like a pizza, place on unfloured cookie sheet.

Bake 18-20 minutes in 400 F. oven

Favourite fruit/nut combinations:

Almond -apricot
Almond-cherry
Peach-pecan
Apple-walnut
Blueberry are the best! Fresh blueberries
Raspberry are great too.
posted by NorthCoastCafe at 12:16 PM on December 15, 2005

TASTYLICIOUS MUFFINS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose or wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon apple pie spice or cinnamon
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 cup sour cream
1 egg
12 oz. blueberries or 12 oz. mashed banana or 12 oz. chopped apple

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, spice and salt; set aside. Melt butter and whisk together with sour cream and egg. Stir butter mixture and your choice of fruit into the flour mixture until just combined. Divide batter among greased muffin cups and bake in preheated 400ºF oven until golden, about 20-25 minutes. This makes 6 jumbo muffins.

Note: This batter is very thick. REMAIN CALM, DO NOT OVERSTIR, EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY.
posted by naomi at 12:20 PM on December 15, 2005

Scones are also pretty when you cut them out with big fluted cutters (or sometimes I use big star cutters) -- nice for Christmas, especially if you have used dried cherries or cranberries in the mix. A little cardamom is nice with the berries.
posted by mdiskin at 1:32 PM on December 15, 2005

My favourite muffins makes about 10.
100 grams of butter
2 dl (200ml) sugar
5 tablespoons cocoa (the type without sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar powder (do you even have that elsewehere in the world?)
3 dl (300ml) flour
2 large eggs
ca. 175 grams of raspberries

Melt the butter and let it cool slightly, add sugar, cocoa, vanilla sugar and flour. Mix and add eggs. Mix. Put into muffin cups. Put 3-4 raspberries (or two if they are large and five if they are small) into each cup.

Bake in the middle of the oven at 175°C for about 20 minutes. They are supposed to be a bit moist in the middle.
posted by mummimamma at 1:40 PM on December 15, 2005

I wish I could post the recipe, but Alton Brown has a great "base recipe" for Muffins in "I'm Just Here For More Food". I would suggest it not only for the muffin recipe, but it's jam packed of all sorts of good baking information.

It's the first cookbook I ever read from front to back,
posted by punkrockrat at 3:55 PM on December 15, 2005

For the best baking how-to information I would go to America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Illustrated.
posted by scazza at 4:25 PM on December 15, 2005

If you replace the milk withe something acidic, like orange juice (or sour cream if you don't give a damn) it'll react with the baking powder or baking soda and make your muffins lighter.
posted by cali at 5:53 PM on December 15, 2005