Advice from a Muffin Lover

I bake a lot of muffins. Usually a dozen a week. I’ve been doing this since my kids have been eating solid food. We’re talking thousands of muffins coming out of my kitchen in the last decade. 

Also, full disclosure: as a kid, I ate a Wegmans chocolate chip muffin for breakfast almost every single morning before school. I may have a thing for muffins. 

Here are, from my muffin-baking experience, the most important things to know about muffins:

Muffins can be hearty, wholesome fare, or they can be cupcakes minus the frosting. You choose. As an adult, I tend to prefer the former. The Wegmans muffins I ate as a child were definitely the latter, but they changed their recipe for chocolate chip muffins sometime in the '90s. I’ve never recovered from the betrayal. 

If going for the more wholesome route, muffins make delightful lunches for little eaters paired with some fruit and some protein. Perhaps almond butter for dipping said fruit? Cheese sticks? Sliced deli meat? A hard boiled egg if it doesn’t make the other children pass out from the smell? 

You have options to maximize nutrition in your muffins: 

• You can use half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose flour. Or try using my favorite: white whole wheat flour. You get the nutrition of whole wheat without the heavy density that regular whole wheat flour can impart. This is the only flour I use in muffins. 
• You can replace up to 1/2 cup flour in a recipe with wheat germ. 
• You can replace up to half the fat with flax meal. The proper ratio is to 3 parts flax meal for every 1 part fat. For example, for a recipe calling for 1/2 cup oil, use 3/4 cup flax meal and 1/4 cup oil. Subbing flax meal for more than half the fat can throw your liquid proportions off. 
• You can replace up to half the fat with unsweetened applesauce. Using more applesauce than that can make your muffins rubbery. 
• You can use flax meal to replace eggs. For each egg to be replaced, mix 1 tablespoon flax meal with 3 tablespoons warm water. Let sit for 5-10 minutes or until it thickens and becomes slightly gooey. Proceed with recipe. 
• I would not recommend substituting flax for fat while also substituting flax for eggs. That’s just too... flaxy. 
• You can reduce the sugar in a muffin recipe to 1/2 cup sugar per 2 cups of flour and still have good results, especially if using a sweet add-in like chocolate chips. Reducing the sugar too much can affect the structural integrity of the muffin. And sugar makes things taste good, so there’s that. In general, try reducing sugar by 25% to see how it affects the recipe.

Muffins don’t like to be overmixed. They lose their tenderness and become tough when mixed too much. Use a rubber scraper to stir the wet and dry ingredients together, and make sure you scrape well along the sides and bottom of the bowl. Stir until JUST combined. If using add-ins like chips or nuts, stir the batter until there’s still some flour streaks, and then stir in your mix-ins. 

Muffins are prettiest when they are tall and nicely rounded. To get maximum height from your muffins:

• Fill your muffin cups almost to to the top. We’re talking 1/4 to 1/3 cup of batter. 
• Increase the temperature of your oven by 50 degrees for the first 5 minutes of baking, then reduce it to a more muffin-appropriate temperature listed in the recipe for the remainder of the baking time. Cut a few minutes off the baking time to make sure they don't overbake due to the increased temperature. I don’t know why this works, but it does. 

Muffins are also their prettiest when they have some sort of flair on top. I like to use turbinado sugar, which gives a bit of sparkle and crunch. Cinnamon sugar or a drizzle of melted chocolate or a few chopped nuts or seeds all work too. Flair is about fun, people! Make sure you have enough flair.

Muffins are a fantastic way to introduce children to baking. They are also a fantastic way to help overly controlling chef-y parents release some of that kitchen control in a low-pressure way. I do not say this from experience AT ALL. I’ve just heard it. From other people. Named "Molley." 

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These are my children's absolute favorite muffin I make. They like them best with chocolate chips in them, but these muffins would also be yummy with chopped walnuts or pecans, pumpkin seeds, or dried cranberries. Or maybe a combo of these! This recipe calls for only half a can of pumpkin which I know some people find supremely irritating. You can either (a) double the recipe or (b) scoop the leftover pumpkin into a quart-sized zip top bag, smush it all out flat, then freeze for future use. The bag of frozen pumpkin can be quickly thawed by sitting it in a bowl of hot water.

On the dietary needs front: if you make sure to use dairy-free chocolate chips, these muffins will be dairy-free. Use flax meal for eggs as well, and the muffins will be vegan.

Pumpkin Muffins

Adapted from Kid's Favorite Chocolate Chip Muffins 

Ingredients:
1 - 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons canned pumpkin puree (half a 15 ounce can)
1/2 cup granulated sugar or packed brown sugar
1/2 cup oil of choice (my favorites are canola oil or melted coconut oil)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (or other add-in of choice)
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan lightly but thoroughly with cooking spray, and set aside.

Place first 5 ingredients (flour through salt) in a large bowl and whisk together until combined. Place eggs in a medium bowl and whisk until lightly beaten. Add pumpkin, sugar, and oil to the eggs; whisk to combine thoroughly. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Using a rubber spatula or scraper, gently stir until a few streaks of flour remain. Add chocolate chips (or other add-in of choice), and gently stir again until chips are just folded into the batter. Scoop batter into prepared muffin pan using a rounded 1/4 cup measure of batter per muffin cup (I like to use a #24 measuring scoop). Sprinkle the top of each mound of batter with a bit of turbinado sugar.

Place pan in oven, and bake for 5 minutes only. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees, and bake for 15 more minutes or until the top of a muffin springs back when lightly touched with a finger. Remove from oven, and let muffins cool in pan for about 5 minutes or until not too hot to touch. Remove muffins from pan, and allow to cool on a cooling rack (or start devouring immediately). They keep well in the freezer and can be thawed in the microwave for about 20 seconds per muffin. Yield: 12 perfectly lunchbox-sized muffins.