TIPical Mary Ellen host Mary Ellen Pinkham provides tips for baking muffins.
- For high-capped muffins, always work with room-temperature ingredients. Eggs and butter are especially important when baking muffins. When the room-temperature batter goes into the oven, the baking process will happen much faster.
- Make sure to put a hardy scoop of batter into the tins, and once out of the oven, allow them to cool or rest in the tins for at least five minutes.
- Never over-mix muffin ingredients. The batter should be lumpy when poured into the muffin pan.
- Always sift together the dry ingredients, and if necessary, stir them until an even color has been reached. Then, when the wet ingredients are added, only a few strokes are necessary for mixing.
- Prevent unnecessary damage to the berries by folding them in as the last step before pouring the batter into the muffin pan.
- Use butter to line your muffin tins, rather than muffin papers or oil. The taste of butter is far better than oil, and you won't have to worry about the muffins sticking to the paper.
- Use an ice-cream scoop to pouring the batter into the tin.
- Achieve a crusty muffin top every time by brushing the tops of the muffins with egg white and sprinkling them with sugar. Bake as usual.
- If you're baking less than a full tin of muffins, be sure to fill the empty cups with water to ensure that the heat is evenly conducted in the oven. This will also provide extra humidity in the oven and prevent the edges of the muffins from burning.
