Muffins are something we do really well at the resort.
We get fantastic comments about our breakfast, but it's the pastries that cause a lot of the fuss.
The sweet muffins disappear from the buffet quickly, and everybody has a favourite flavour or three, so we rotate daily.
Recently we started making savoury muffins, which is something I normally introduce wherever I'm working.
There's nothing quite like a flavoursome, melt-in-your-mouth muffin filled with cheese, herbs and something savoury like onion, bacon or vegetables.
The real secret lies in the mixing. If you mix it until it's smooth, the gluten (flour protein) stretches and the muffins become chewy.
Whatever you do, don't over mix. Don't even mix it sufficiently.
Rule of thumb is, if it looks like a muffin dough or cake batter, it's over-mixed.
If it looks like it is mixed 'just enough' it's probably overmixed too.
Did you ever taste a chewy muffin, or a muffin that didn't just melt in your mouth? It was over mixed.
Over-mixing is the worst enemy of cakes, cookies and muffins, and the number one cause of making shocking muffins that you wouldn't even feed to the dog.
No mixing machines, no whisks, and probably even no spoon is a good way to execute muffin mixing.
Like making scones, using a table knife to scrape the ingredients together into a rough lumpy dough gives the best results.
When it looks too lumpy to be properly mixed, it's just about perfect.
My pastry team have it down pat now. Our muffins are sensational.
The recipe
There IS no recipe. But I'll give you one down below anyway.
There is a ratio of flour, egg and liquid which is based on weight, not volume, so American readers, please grab your scales and discard your cups and spoons.
I used to use a recipe for muffins long ago, but knowing the proportions of ingredients to use frees you from being a
slave to a recipe. Then you can focus on combining ingredients and flavours.
Michael Ruhlman has a great book - a wee culinary bible in fact, based on this very concept.
The book is imaginatively called 'Ratio'.
He states "When you know a culinary ratio, it's not like knowing a recipe, it's instantly knowing a thousand"
This is a secret of success for most chefs who use ratios almost without thinking.
It's all about understanding the proportions of ingredients and how they interact. The techniques below will teach you how to make perfect muffins every time, and the ratio will give you the freedom to throw away recipes and focus on the tastes and ingredients you want
Basic Muffin Ratio
2 flour: 2 Liquid: 1 eggs: 1 butter
For plain flour, use 1.5 flat teaspoons of baking powder per cup (or per 120g)
You can use any weight measurement with that ratio: grams, kilos, ounces etc.
I use grams, mainly because that's what pops up on the front of my scales.
I use grams, mainly because that's what pops up on the front of my scales.
200g flour
12.5g baking powder (2.5 tsp)
200g milk
100g beaten egg
100g melted butter
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For savoury muffins, add salt and pepper to taste.
For sweet muffins add 100g sugar to the recipe. So it becomes 2 flour: 2 Liquid: 1 eggs: 1 butter: 1 sugar
The bulky garnish or main flavouring ingredient should be roughly the same as the flour amount.
Eg for sweet muffins: berries, fruit etc 1 cup, or 200g
For savoury muffins: cheese, bacon, onion or vegetable – 200g combined.
Other ways to flavour muffins include replacing all or part of the milk with tea, or coffee, or fruit juice, or other flavoured liquids.
You can also infuse the milk with herbs, spices, tea, or coffee or other flavours that catch your imagination.
Bake at 180 degrees C until puffed and cooked through.
About 15 – 20 minutes generally, depending on the size of your muffin tin.
About 15 – 20 minutes generally, depending on the size of your muffin tin.
Check by poking a skewer in. If the skewer comes out with uncooked batter, it isn't ready.
If the skewer comes out clean, you're done.
If the skewer comes out clean, you're done.
Don't overcook or they dry out.
Let the muffins cool before you take them out of the mould, or else they'll break.
Paper Muffin cups are OK to use at home.
We use silicone muffin moulds which are non stick, soft, and easy to turn out to extract the muffins in one piece.
Non stick muffin trays are also good.
Here's our 7 most popular savoury muffin flavours (as consumed by eagle-eyed hotel guests)
- Parma ham, parmesan and basil (pictured below)
- Cheese and rosemary
- Bacon, onion, parsley
- Thyme and onion
- Pumpkin, cheddar and coriander
- Roast capsicum, feta and basil (pictured below)
- Tomato, feta and parsley
For sweet muffins, here's 20 great flavour ideas:
- Wattle seed – add wattle seed cooked in water to a mud consistency
- Raspberry and kaffir lime leaf
- Lemon and clove
- Apple and cinnamon (pictured below)
- Triple chocolate – cocoa powder in the flour, + dark & white choc chip in the batter
- Jaffa – cocoa in the flour, + orange zest, choc chips & orange juice
- Banana and chocolate
- Caramel muffins – make caramel flavoured milk
- Orange and cardamom (infuse cardamom in milk or add ground cardamom & orange zest to mix)
- Coconut muffins are great (dessicated coconut, shaved toasted coconut shavings & coconut milk)
- Mango muffins rock! – chunks of fresh ripe mango!
- Spiced ginger muffins – ginger, clove, cinnamon, allspice and cardamom
- Lemongrass muffins – infuse the milk with lemongrass
- Coffee and walnut – espresso shot, condensed milk and toasted or candied walnuts
- Coffee and chocolate mocha muffins
- Snicker muffins – cocoa, chocolate chunks, roasted peanuts and toffee
- Macadamia, apricot and white choc chip
- Coffee toffee muffins
- Choc hazelnut
- Peanut butter and choc chip
- And of course, the classics: banana, mixed berry, blueberry, choc chip etc.
Have fun baking.
Please leave any questions or feedback in the comments section and I'll get back to you ASAP
can you substiute the Butter for either one of the following Australian 100% pure and fesh certified by the toughest tests available in Australia.
1. extra virgin olive oil
2. a mix of EVOO and Canola Oil (5%/95%) or
3. a pure non GM high Oleic Canola oil
Love to know as food safety & health are trully just as important.
Yes you can!
You can swap any oil, lipid or butter for butter in the basic formula.
All fats work the same in the muffin ratio.
You can work with the difference in textures and flavours to your benefit
The better the flavour or quality of the oil, the better the taste.
I wouldn’t mix it with Asian flavours or standard sweet stuff, but EVOO would be great with the parmesan prosciutto muffins, tomato basil, or with black pepper, parsley, eggplant, Mediterranean etc.
Cheers for the feedback.