Muffin Mayhem

Muffins come in all sizes and flavors. You can make mini muffins or extra large muffins in flavors such as blueberry, cappuccino, chocolate chip and banana nut and sprinkle them with a cinnamon or streusel topping. Personally, I am a huge muffin fan and love to bake them whenever I get the chance. I am always experimenting with new muffin recipes. 


The first muffin I ever made was a simple chocolate chip muffin. I didn't want to do a complicated recipe for fear of messing up the muffins. The muffins didn't come out too bad, but I knew I could do better. I decided to do some research on muffins to see what I could find. There was plenty of information about the do's and don'ts of baking muffins, but here are the three most valuable lessons I learned.


Lesson one and two are to cool the butter and let the eggs come to room temperature. If the butter is too hot or the eggs are too cold, it can shock the leavening agents and reduce the size of the muffin or fluffiness of the muffin tops. The third lesson is to fill any extra tins with water, which allow nearby muffins to bake evenly. It will also prevent metal tins from warping due to the high heat in the oven. 



The next few muffins I baked included applesauce muffins, cappuccino muffins and pineapple upside down muffins. Following the advice of the lessons I mentioned above, these muffins all came out delicious and moist. I love eating them while they are still hot even though it is recommended to let the muffins sit and cool first.  


The pineapple upside down muffins is my favorite. It was like biting into a piece of pineapple heaven. The muffins were nice and meaty and fill you up from the fiber in the pineapples. It also makes for a great breakfast or snack. With the cappuccino muffins I made a cinnamon topping to put on the muffins. The coffee in the muffin and the cinnamon on top made for a nice combination of flavors when biting into it. 


If you can think it, you can put it in a muffin. Like cupcakes, muffins can be flavored and topped with pretty much anything. Think about all the different ingredients you like, see what combinations go well together and put it into a muffin. Who know, maybe you will invent a whole new muffin.