CLASSIC MUFFINS

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO BAKE A BATCH OF those jumbo muffins you see in bakeries and specialty coffee shops? If you follow most cookbook recipes, you won't get what you're looking for. We tried scores of recipes, and we weren't satisfied with the results, either. Some muffins came out flat-topped or misshapen. Other batches were either rich and leaden or dense and dry. The best were pleasant, but not outstanding.

Our standards, admittedly, were high. We weren't looking for a "healthy" muffin to incorporate in our daily diet. We wanted a really great weekend muffin, one that would make brunch guests covet the recipe. This muffin had to have it all. It needed rich, full flavor with a thin, crisp crust protecting its fragile, tender crumb. What's more, this muffin had to be a real looker. We would settle for nothing less than a perfectly round, mushroomlike cap with a pronounced, crisp overhang.

Working with a conservative six-muffin recipe, we decided to start our tests with mixing techniques. Our review of recipes pointed to the three possible methods introduced in (quick bread method, creaming method, biscuit/pie dough method; see Techniques). Although the recipe we were working with at this point was way too lean (the muffins were small, dry, tough, and unappetizing), it did have one thing going for it—the creaming method. The creamed-batter muffins we had made thus far were more tender-crumbed than their competitors.

We were puzzled at this development. Practically every quick bread recipe cautions not to overmix the batter once wet and dry ingredients have been combined. Better, most authors reason, to leave streaks of flour in the batter than to overdevelop the flour's gluten, which results in smaller, denser, and tougher muffins.

In the creaming method, the batter was beaten by machine up to two minutes, depending on the recipe. If overbeating caused gluten development and tough muffins, why were these muffins tender? The explanation is fairly straightforward. In the creaming process butter is first aerated with sugar, then fat-and moisture-rich eggs are beaten into the mix. Dry ingredients are added alternately with the wet ingredients. In most creamed butter recipes, a good portion of the flour (in our recipe, it's half) is added to the creamed butter mixture before the wet ingredients. That way, the fat from the butter and egg coats most of the flour, preventing any gluten formation. The remaining flour and wet ingredients are added alternately at this point, stimulating only a part of the flour's gluten. Certainly some of the flour's gluten must be activated; otherwise the muffin would have no structure at all.

In the quick-bread method, all wet ingredients and fats are added at once, denying the flour an opportunity to be coated with fat. We naturally questioned why the quick-bread method couldn't approximate the creaming method of coating the flour with fat first. So we made a batch of muffins, mixing the dry ingredients, then adding melted butter and eggs to disperse the fat. When the flour was sufficiently coated, we stirred in the remaining wet ingredient (usually a dairy product, in this case, yogurt).

The muffins were just as tender as those made using the creamed method. But because the batter had not been aerated by the mixer, they lacked the height of the mixer muffins. So when you're short on time, you can achieve more tender muffins by simply mixing the melted butter and eggs into the dry ingredients. The muffins will not rise high enough to develop a lip, but their texture and flavor will be fine. When perfection counts, get out the mixer.

With the mixing method chosen, we moved on to testing individual ingredients. Because our original formula was too dry and savory, we increased the butter and sugar, then moved on to testing the primary ingredient: flour. We made muffins with cake flour, all-purpose flour, and an equal mix of cake and all-purpose flours.

The batter made with cake flour was incredibly loose compared with the other batters, resulting in muffins that were squat, wet, and greasy. They also lacked a distinct, crisp outer crust. Muffins baked with half cake and half all-purpose were a step up from the cake flour muffins, but their texture was a tad wet and greasy and they lacked the beautiful shape of those made entirely with all-purpose flour. Although the all-purpose flour formula still needed work, these muffins were shapely and fairly tender, with a nice contrast between crust and crumb. After our flour tests, we decided that the formula needed more sugar for added flavor.

By now our formula was beginning to take shape, and we were ready to test liquids. We made muffins using low-fat milk, whole milk, half-and-half, cream, powdered milk plus water (common in commercial baking), buttermilk, yogurt, and sour cream. Leavening adjustments were made (reducing the amount of baking powder and including baking soda) for all the buttermilk, yogurt, and sour cream muffins.

The thin liquids—low-fat milk, whole milk, powdered milk, and half-and-half—naturally produced thin batters that baked into smooth-topped muffins. They looked more like cupcakes. Low-fat milk muffins were soufflé-shaped, with straight sides and flat tops.

The thicker liquids—cream, buttermilk, low-fat yogurt, and sour cream—delivered thicker batters and muffins with rounded, textured tops. The higher-fat muffins, particularly those made with sour cream and cream, were squat, dense, heavy, and wet. The buttermilk muffins were good, but the yogurt-enriched were better, having a rough-textured rounded top, a sweet-tangy flavor, and a light, tender crumb.

Now that we had a working base, we started adding fruits and flavorings. Three additional adjustments to the recipe came during this part of the testing. Although the sugar level seemed right in the plain muffin, the muffins made with tart fruit and other ingredients did not seem sweet enough. After increasing the sugar for the fruit variations, we found that we liked more sugar in the plain version of the recipe as well. We also found that one more tablespoon of butter gave us additional tenderness without weighing down the muffin. Increasing the batter by one-half—from a recipe that uses 2 cups of flour to one that uses 3 cups—pumped up the volume to give us not only a beautifully rounded top but also a nice big lip. This base worked with all of the following variations, so you should feel free to plug in your own favorite ingredients.

As a final question, we wondered if the kind of fat used to grease the muffin tin would affect the final baked product. To find out, we baked muffins in an ungreased muffin tin and in four more tins, one each coated in butter, shortening, oil, and vegetable cooking spray. Only those baked in ungreased muffin tins were completely unacceptable, displaying tough, leathery crusts. Although differences were subtle, we preferred the flavor of the muffins baked in buttered tins. For ease and speed, vegetable cooking spray took first place.