How to make soft moist muffins? November 14, 2007

I saw this article on a website and I find it quite useful for people who wants to make soft and moist muffins.

 

Article is by Shiloah Baker

There is nothing like a tender, soft, moist muffin straight from the oven. The perfect muffin’s outside is never hard, and when pulled from its muffin paper or popped out straight from the muffin pan it comes out completely and easily. How in the world is this done?

There are some tricks to muffins that many recipes (or box instructions even) do not include.

The first trick is to NEVER use a hand mixer. Think of muffin batter as a tiny soft baby that can easily crush.

The best utensil for mixing muffins is a wooden spoon.

Make a well into the dry ingredients of the muffins and add the wet ingredients into

the “hole”. Gently fold the dry ingredients over and stir softly. NEVER stir the batter more than 20 times; count each turn of the spoon around the bowl as one, two, and so on.

It is okay to have some lumps in the batter. The object is not to rid the batter of the lumps, but to not over mix.

When putting the batter into the muffin tins, I like two methods. The first, method is to use a ¼ cup measuring cup. My other favorite method is to use an ice cream scoop with the sliding piece inside to easily push the batter out of the spoon and into the cup.

Chocolate Chips Muffins November 9, 2007

I loves chocolate hence my first attempt on baking is Chocolate Muffins.  The first time turns out to be too hard after the muffins turn cold.  Muffins is always best eaten when it is hot, fresh from the oven.  Overnight muffins always don’t taste as good but i have tried fantastic muffins that bought from stalls and it still taste soft even after a night. Mmmm…. i guess that is their secret recipes. I am still finding a way to figure out.

Chocolate Chips Muffins ( Make about 6)

1) 1 Cup of Flour

2) 1/2 cup of sugar

3) 1/2 cup of Milk

4) 1/2 teaspoon of salt

5) 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

6) 1/4 cup of butter

7) 1 egg

8) 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

9) 1 1/2 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder

10) 1/4 cup of choc chips.

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 190 degree c 

2) Sieve flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder together.

3) Cream butter & sugar until smooth.  Beat in vanilla and eggs one at a time.

4) Stir in the combined flour into (3)

5) Mix chocolate chips into the sugar mixture until combined.

6) Lay the muffin cups into the muffin tray and fill it until 3/4 full.  (You may sprinkle more choc chips on the top if you love more choc chips)

7) Bake for 20-25 mins.  Use a toothpick and poke the centre until it come out clean.