Real Muffins!

So, in reading Alton Brown's book on baking, I discovered a horrifying truth. Okay, that may be an exaggeration. But I did learn something I was a bit disappointed about. I have never made real muffins. Ever. First, I almost always use a mix. Second, I always over mix everything. So, on a fine Saturday morning, I set out to do what I had never done before. I was going to make muffins.

I decided to make this a double experiment. I figured making muffins didn't seem that intimidating, so I also decided to test different liner options. First, according to Alton, you should always use both a lubricant and a liner. He says not to use butter, because it will release water, which will result in steam, and may change the way your goods bake. He recommended shortening, and that is just what I used. I lined 6 muffin cups with foil muffin liners. I lined 3 with paper liners. And I didn't line 3 cups at all.

The basic recipe for muffins is really pretty simple, so I don't know why I always buy a mix. I mean, I guess the mix is easier, but I get a lot more credit for doing it from scratch. I mixed my dry ingredients in my food processor (WAY better than sifting!), and mixed all my wet ingredients together, seperately. I had a hard time deciding whether I should use a liquid or dry measuring cup for the yogurt. With the liquid, I had less than I needed, with the dry, I had more. Sigh. So I also added a tablespoon of skim milk, in case it was not wet enough. I combined my two add-ins (chocolate chips and fresh, slightly macerated, raspberries) with the dry ingredients, then added in the wet ingredients until they were just combined. Juuuuuuust combined! Scooped the batter into the muffin tin and popped it in the oven.

I had a hard time figuring out if I had the right temperature. My thermometer is crap. Time to get a new one. Eventually I decided that the tops of the muffins looked "done", and I took them out. **NEW TIP!!!** When you take muffins out of the oven, you should immediately tip them all sideways in their little muffin cups. This releases the steam that may be trapped in the cup, and keeps the bottom from getting soggy. (Or you could use foil...see my experiment results below.)

Experiment Results:
All of the muffins tasted pretty delicious. The smaller ones were a little more dry than I would have liked, because my muffins were not uniform in size. Next time I'll make sure to fill all my muffin cups to the top. But they were all pretty delicious. And when I broke them open...MUFFIN CONFIGURATION! Woot! I made muffins!

So, as far as liners go. The clear winner was the foil. It was easy to get out of the muffin tin, and it didn't stick to the muffin, either. The muffin stayed more moist, as well. Second place in my book went to the no liner option. It was a bit hard to flip the muffin on its side, but not terrible. And the no liner muffins all had a nice crispy edge to them, even on the muffin bottoms. The big loser was the paper liner. Both the no liner and paper liner options had absorbed all of the shortening in the tin, which is not something I was thrilled to see. But the paper liner also really stuck to the muffin, so that when I peeled it off, it took some of the muffin with it. Dislike.

So....foil! Winner! This was a big muffin win for me! Muffin win!

The Recipe:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prepare the muffin tin with shortening and liners, if you so choose. Once you combine all ingredients, bake for 18 to 20 minutes, internal temperature should be 210 (or 180 if you are my thermometer :( ), or a toothpick inserted should come out clean.

Dry Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
Pinch of Salt

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup plain yogurt

Add-Ins: you can add 1 to 2 cups of whatever you'd like. I went with 1 cup macerated raspberries, and a heaping 1/2 cup of chocolate chips.

Brunch Club - The First

My friends and I are having our inaugural "Brunch Club" meeting this morning. I'm not going to review everyone's fare unless they request it, but you may see some future Brunch Club posts. Anyways...

I've been having a cupcake craving. But cupcakes are not really brunch food, especially for a brunch starting at 10am. So, I decided to go with a muffin-cupcake theory. Really, its just a muffin with frosting. Good deal, right?

I decided to lazy it up, so I bought boxed muffin mix. The reason I feel not so bad about buying boxed muffin mix is that it seems a big waste of my time to mix and sift flour/sugar/etc. I went with a box of Krusteaz Fat Free Wild Blueberry. I didn't notice the fat free part until I got home. Not a big fan of baking with the fat free, but it was fine because the frosting fattied it up. A lot.

I didn't want to be entirely non-creative with my box o' muffins, so I minced fresh strawberries and added 1/4 cup of the strawberries to the batter. I reduced the water in the recipe by 1/8th of a cup. I probably could have added more fresh strawberries, since strawberries are a rather mildly flavored fruit, especially when compared with blueberries. If I had used cranberries, then 1/4 cup would have been sufficient. But I also was aiming for a big strawberry taste. Oh well. This is what I get for being lazy. However, the muffins taste good, and considering how little time/effort it took, I was pleased with them. My only complaint about this box mix is that it makes 11, yes that's 11, muffins. Not very many, and why can't you give me enough batter to make 12?!

For the frosting I borrowed a Paula Dean recipe. You know what that means... BUTTER!!! Insane amounts of butter! The recipe is here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/red-velvet-cupcakes-with-cream-cheese-frosting-recipe/index.html

Now, when I looked at this recipe, I was pretty floored by just how much cream cheese and butter it was calling for. I made half the recipe, knowing that half the recipe would probably frost 24 cupcakes easily. Paula Dean must end up with cupcakes that have more frosting than cake! So, if you cut the recipe in half you will get delicious frosting and plenty of it. I actually didn't half the vanilla, but I like very vanilla flavor. I also added about 1/4 cup minced fresh strawberries, to compliment the flavor of the muffin. Deeeeelicious. But how could it not be, with that much butter and cream cheese?!