43 Unexpected Muffin-Tin Recipes You've Never Tried (2024)

FAQs

How do you make muffins moist and not dry? ›

You can use alternative items such as ramekins, silicone baking cups, or even a regular baking sheet lined with parchment paper to bake muffins without a muffin tray.

Take any basic batter, from brownie batter to cake batter to muffin batter, and spread it onto a parchment-lined (or well-greased) sheet pan with high edges. Bake until just set and golden on the edges, then remove from the oven and let it cool.

What causes the muffins to be tough, heavy or rubbery? A. Two things: too much egg and using a dark, nonstick pan. A large-size egg, about 1/4 cup, will give you the best results.

Chilling your muffin batter overnight in the fridge is the BEST thing you can do for amazing muffins. It makes them more moist, tender, and TALLER! It's very similar to chilling cookie dough, which if you know me you know I'm obsessed with chilling cookie dough. Think of it like marinating.

Many muffin recipes use cooking oil instead of butter. Oil, being a liquid, distributes easily in the quick-mix batter and is readily absorbed into the baked muffin, producing a light non-greasy texture. Vegetable oil is ideal because its mild flavour doesn't compete with the main flavour of the muffin.

Is There a Difference Between a Cupcake Pan and a Muffin Pan? What is this? Muffin pans and cupcake pans are exactly the same. However, in yet another difference between cupcakes and muffins, cupcakes always use liners and muffins are often baked without liners.

Have you ever been baking, about to scoop your batter into the muffin tin, and realize you have no paper liners? You can always grease the pan, but doing each individual divot takes time and if you don't have nonstick spray, this process can get very tedious very fast.

Skip Silicone Muffin Pans

Plus, silicone doesn't conduct heat the same way metal does, and everything we baked in the silicone muffin pans we tested came out pale and underdone. Because silicone muffin pans are so floppy, they're often placed on a sheet pan and then into an oven.

First, cut a sheet of parchment into five-to-six-inch squares. Then, place the squares over the holes in the muffin tin, and use the heel of a small glass to mold the paper into the indent.

What not to do when making muffins? ›

The fluffy batter is what gives cupcakes their soft, spongy texture. Muffins, on the other hand, are moist and dense. Another important difference between a cupcake and a muffin is that cupcakes tend to have more sugar and so they're a lot sweeter than muffins.

Quickbreads and muffins are hydrating batters, which means the flour absorbs the liquid over time, resulting in a very moist muffin, and improving the flavor. So let your muffin batter rest, up to 24 hours if possible.

If the batter is overmixed, tunnels develop inside the muffins during baking and the texture changes from that of bread to cake. Top crusts turn out smooth and peaked. To produce first-rate muffins, begin by thoroughly blending the dry ingredients--flour, sugar, baking powder and salt--in a medium-sized bowl.

Let muffins cool a few minutes in the pan (follow recipe directions), then carefully remove from pan to a wire cooling rack. If the muffins stick to the pan, carefully run a small flexible metal spatula or thin-bladed knife around the sides to loosen. Muffins which are cooled in the pan too long may become soggy.

The main cause of dry, hard muffins is over-mixing the batter and overcooking the muffins. So the the 3 simple secrets for beautifully soft and moist blueberry muffins are: use butter AND oil -butter makes things tasty but oil makes things moist. So use both!

Pecans, walnuts, and almonds can add a crunchy texture to moist muffins. Gently fold in 1/2 cup of your favorite chopped nuts into your muffin batter. Or try adding a scoop of peanut butter or peanut butter powder to the batter. If the mix gets a little too thick, just add a splash of water to even out the consistency.

Too much liquid – If there is too much liquid in the batter, the muffins will be very dense. Make sure to measure liquid ingredients in the correct type of measuring cup. There's a big difference between measuring cups for dry ingredients and those for liquids.