If you want light, fluffy muffins, take care to treat the batter right. See what happens if you don’t.
Things Required:
1 cup (112 g) all-purpose unbleached flour
A small egg
3 tablespoonfuls of sugar
1 teaspoonful of baking powder
1/4 ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoonful of ground nutmeg
2 large bowls
A wooden spoon
1/4 cup (60 ml) of oil
1/2 cup (120 ml) of milk
A whisk (optional)
1 small bowl
3 muffin pans
Oil or margarine for greasing
Directions:
Grease the muffin pans.
Using the smaller bowl, beat the egg with a spoon or a whisk. Then add milk and oil.
In one of the large bowls, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Make a hole in the centre of the dry ingredients. Dump the liquid ingredients into the hole. Stir the mixture about 12 to 14 times, just enough to moisten the dry ingredients. The batter should be rough and lumpy.
Pour half of the batter into a second large bowl. Mix that batter until it is smooth.
Spoon a heaping tablespoon of the lumpy batter into one of the muffin cups so that it may be 2/3 full. At the opposite end of the same muffin pan, do the same thing with the smooth batter.
Repeat the process with the two other pans. Now you have three muffin pans, each with one muffin of smooth batter and one of lumpy batter.
Turn on the oven to 400°F (205°C). Don’t preheat it; instead, immediately put in one muffin pan.
After 10 minutes, put in the second pan.
In about 25 to 30 minutes, when the muffins are a golden brown, remove them from the oven. (Use pot holders!)
Then, put the third muffin pan into the hot oven and turn the heat up to 450°F (230°C). After 25 or 30 minutes, remove this pan from the oven. Let them all cool and sample each muffin.
This Is What Happens:
The muffins from the lumpy batter in the preheated oven-pan number 2-look and taste the best.
Science Behind It:
For delicious muffins, you don’t need to work hard. Overmixing develops the gluten and results in knobs or peaks on the top and long holes or tunnels inside the muffins.
It is also important to preheat the oven before you put the muffins in. If the oven is not hot enough, the muffins will be flat and heavy. That’s because the baking soda isn’t activated soon enough to cause the batter to rise.
However, if the oven is too hot, the carbon dioxide goes to work too soon, and muffins will be poorly shaped and tough.
