Basic Muffin Batter

 

Before making muffins it is good to know you can make the batter a day or two ahead of time and leave it covered in the fridge until you are ready to bake them. This is so great when you have company coming for a few days. You can wow them by serving home made muffins and not even look like you worked hard preparing them. 

Preheat your oven, put the coffee on, drop the batter in the muffin tray, press the timer on your microwave as you put your muffins in the oven and by the time the first cup of coffee is ready the muffins are almost out of the oven.

 Basic Muffin Batter 

Creaming method

 

Unsalted Butter                                               ½ cup/125g    

Sugar                                                               ¾ cup/150g

Vanilla                                                              1 tsp/7.5ml

Salt                                                                  ½ tsp/3 g                    

Eggs                                                                 2

Milk                                                                 175 ml

All-Purpose Flour                                           2 ½ cups/300g

BP                                                                    3 level tsp/12g

Fruit and flavour                                           1 cup fruit and zest if using a citrus flavour

1.      Cream butter and sugar.

2.      Sift Flour and baking powder together and set aside.

3.      Add vanilla, salt and eggs one at a time to the butter and sugar mixture and mixing until incorporated.

4.      Add flour mix and milk in three increments to the mixture ending with flour mix.

5.      Add one cup of berries, chocolate chips or other add-ins. If you add berries I suggest you add also a bit of lemon juice to the berries before adding to the mix.

D    Drop evenly 2/3 full into lined or greased muffin tin.

6.      Bake 375 for approximately 20-25 minutes until toothpick comes out clean when testing and tops are golden.

Toppings 

If you go for lemon poppyseed, consider a drizzle of lemon sugar on top after baked.

 

 Streusel Topping

Use one ½ cup sugar to ½ cup barely melted butter and ½ cup flour. You can use a combination of granulated and brown or just one or the other of the sugars. You may also flavour with cinnamon, nutmeg or another spice of your choosing.

(Many professional bakers ask for unsalted butter. In this case it would be ok to use either but you may want to add a pinch of salt to taste with unsalted. Both crumble and streusel will last one week in the fridge tightly sealed.

Muffins should stay in the muffin tin a few minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Dog widom: Sniff out opportunities. Just like the dog who will eat a dropped treat from the kitchen table, don't let the good stuff pass you by!