The Baking Answer Book (19 page)

Q
My muffins are always soggy instead of soft and cakelike. What am I doing wrong?

A
Make sure you are measuring your ingredients correctly. Even just a tablespoon too much liquid can throw a recipe off, leaving the interior of your muffins damp instead of moist. Beyond that, check your oven temperature and baking time. Perhaps your muffins just need a few extra minutes in the oven to dry out sufficiently. Finally, unless you are instructed in the recipe to let the muffins cool in the pan, invert them onto a wire rack right out of the oven. When hot muffins sit in a muffin tin too long, they’ll steam and become soggy.

Q
Help! My blueberry muffins turned green in the oven!

A
The baking soda in your recipe reacted with the alkali in the berries, tinting your batter green. You can prevent this from happening by mixing your berries with a little bit of flour before adding them to the batter.

Q
I want to bake a small batch of 6 muffins, but my muffin tin has 12 cups. Can I just fill half of them?

A
You can use a 12-cup muffin tin to bake 6 muffins, but put ½ cup water in the empty cups. Because of the efficient way a metal tin conducts heat, muffins baked in a tin with empty cups tend to burn before they are baked through, and the empty cups may buckle.

Q
I have mini, regular, and jumbo muffin tins, and like to mix and match my recipes and tins. Is there a rule of thumb for adjusting cooking times depending on the size of your muffin tin?

A
Exact times will vary depending on your recipe ingredients and your oven, but in general, shave 5 to 7 minutes off the recommended baking time if you are making mini muffins instead of the regular size. Add 8 to 12 minutes if you are using jumbo muffin tins. And of course, when in doubt, judge doneness with your eyes (muffin tops should look dry), your fingers (surface should spring back to the touch), and a cake tester (which should come out dry when inserted into the center of a muffin).

Q
What’s the best way to portion out muffin batter so all of my muffins come out the same size?

A
Professional bakers rely on ice cream scoops for uniformly sized muffins. These scoops, come in various sizes, and can be used to scoop out perfect portions of cookie dough as well as muffin batter. Scoops marked with a number 20 or 24 will fill standard muffin cups about three-quarters full, just right for most muffin recipes.

Q
Can I freeze leftover muffins? What about muffin batter?

A
Leftover muffins can be wrapped individually in plastic wrap, placed in a resealable plastic bag, and frozen for up to 1 month. Let them thaw out on the counter for 30 minutes, and then reheat in a 350°F (180°C) oven for 5 to 8 minutes to refresh them. I actually prefer freezing batter to freezing baked muffins. It’s simple and you can’t beat the fresh-baked flavor and texture. To freeze muffin batter, line a muffin tin with foil liners, scoop batter into the liners, and freeze until firm, about 1 hour. Then transfer the batter, still in the liners, to a resealable plastic bag. When ready to bake, transfer them straight from the freezer to the muffin tin and oven, adding on an extra 8 to 10 minutes of baking time.

Q
Can I substitute whole-wheat flour and other whole grains for some of the flour in my muffin and quick-bread recipes?

A
Whole-wheat flour will give your muffin and quick-bread recipes a heartier flavor and a heavier texture. If these changes in the character of your recipe appeal to you, then go ahead and replace up to one-third of the white flour in your recipe with whole-wheat flour.

SEE ALSO:
Whole-wheat flour,
page 8
.

Q
Is there a difference between quick breads and muffins made with butter and those made with oil? Can I substitute one for the other?

A
Butter and oil both moisten and enrich these batters. Butter adds its unique and wonderful flavor, while oil gives quick breads and muffins a longer shelf life. If you are relying on the creaming method to mix your batter and give your bread or muffins an extra lift, then you will have to substitute vegetable shortening, another solid fat, for softened butter, because a liquid oil won’t hold air bubbles the way solid butter or shortening will. If using the quick-bread method of mixing, in which the dry ingredients are combined in one bowl while the wet ingredients are combined in another, before one bowl is dumped into the other, you can use oil or melted and cooled butter interchangeably, according to your preference.

SEE ALSO:
Oil versus butter,
page 22
.

Q
My zucchini bread recipe seems to work about half of the time, and the other half of the time my bread sinks in the middle toward the end of baking or minutes after I pull it out of the oven. What’s going on?

A
I am guessing that sometimes your zucchini contains more water than at other times. Too much liquid in a quick bread recipe can cause the bread to cave in, because it adds weight to the interior crumb that the gluten and egg
structure can’t support. For a more uniform result, seek out a recipe that instructs you to squeeze out the water from the grated zucchini before adding it to the batter.

Q
Are there ways to cut the fat from a muffin or quick-bread recipe?

A
Adapting a recipe to make it lower in fat is a process of trial and error. It’s sometimes difficult to tell just by looking at an ingredient list which substitutions will be most successful. But there are a few general rules to follow. Simply reducing the quantity of fat in a muffin recipe will surely result in a tough, dry, and not terribly tasty product. Swapping egg whites for egg yolks will give you something dry and rubbery, because yolks add moisture and whites are a drying agent. The trick to successful low-fat baking is to leave some fat — one egg yolk, a few tablespoons of oil — in the recipe while replacing the rest with another ingredient that will add tenderness, moisture, and flavor to your quick breads and muffins. Some of the best low-fat recipes use fruit purées to replace most of the oil in standard recipes. Applesauce and mashed bananas work well. Prune purée, available in the kosher foods section of the supermarket, works well in chocolate muffin recipes. You can use these guidelines not only to adapt your own recipes, but to identify low-fat quick-bread and muffin recipes that will work.

Low-Fat Wheat-Bran Muffins

This recipe uses all the tricks of the trade to get the lowest possible fat content with the least loss of moisture and flavor. Instead of two eggs, I use one whole egg and two whites. I swap ¼ cup of vegetable oil for ¼ cup of applesauce. Nonfat buttermilk moistens the batter without added fat. Raisins add sweetness, but also calories, so if that’s a concern just leave them out.

MAKES 12 MUFFINS

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup applesauce

¼ cup dark (not blackstrap) molasses

1 large egg

2 large egg whites

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup raisins (optional)

1.
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or coat it with cooking spray.

2.
Combine the flour, wheat bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the oil, applesauce, molasses, egg, egg whites, vanilla, and buttermilk. Stir just until all the ingredients are moistened. Stir in the raisins.

3.
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 20 to 22 minutes. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Q
Any other tips for using fruits and nuts in quick breads?

A
Fresh and dried fruits and nuts add moisture and flavor to quick breads. Here are some suggestions to help you get the most out of your fruits and nuts.

Fruit and Nut Tips

Take the time to toast your nuts
to bring out their flavor. Spread the nuts on a baking sheet and bake in a 350°F (180°C) oven until fragrant, 8 to 10 minutes. Let them cool completely before chopping them and mixing them into your batter (nuts that are still warm from the oven may heat up your batter, with adverse consequences for your finished bread).

For banana bread,
it is imperative that you use very brown, overripe (my children call them rotten) bananas for real banana flavor. Bright yellow bananas may taste great on their own, but mashed into quick bread batter they will be tasteless compared to much sweeter brown bananas.

For blueberry muffins,
smaller berries are better. Very large berries may sink to the bottom of the muffin cups. Even if they don’t, as they bake they will give off large amounts of liquid, creating watery pockets in the finished muffins.

Frozen blueberries and cranberries
can be as good as fresh. When using frozen berries, add them to your batter straight from the freezer. If allowed to defrost, they will shed liquid, coloring your batter a strange blue or red (or green — see
page 131
).