[pastrycake]

Hello friends,

I thought muffins are easy to master but I cannot seem to get a consistent texture. I tried ap flour and bread flour. Can anyone explain how to get the big and moist muffin you get at coffee shops? I love blueberries but I end up making bananas whenever my bananas are over riped. Also, blueberries are expensive right now. Good way to avoid wasting food. Anyhow, my latest attempt did not live up to my expectation. I think it could be that I sub bread flour for all purpose flour. My second guess is that I made muffin when I recipe is for banana bread. So, the cooking time could be off. Ok, I just want to make a yummy blueberry or banana muffin without messing up. Such a waste of time whenever it turned out dry and hard on the outside.

Thanks for listening to me rant.

[Jock]

When it comes to muffins, IMHO bigger is not necessarily better - especially for home made. I don't know how these big commercial bake shops make their muffins but reproducing them at home is nigh on impossible.

There are a lot of variables when making muffins but I've always had good luck with the Cooks Illustrated method using sour cream in the mix to activate the baking powder and to inhibit gluten development.

BTW, you definately don't want to use a high gluten bread flour.

Jock

[KyleW]

Recipes for most quick breads, like banana bread, are largely the same as "muffin" recipes. But you need to reduce the baking time. Start checking them at 50% of the time for the bread. Muffins do not take nearly as long. I often use frozen bluberries in my muffins. I mix them into the batter still frozen. If you thaw them first they will turn to mush

[jessiquina]

i know that ina garten (the barefoot contessa) from the food network.com has a really great muffins recipe. follow it exactly and see if it turns out.

[Pastrybag]

Try one of these little recipe books
"Mostly Muffins" by Barbara Albright & Leslie Weiner
"Muffins" by Elizabneth Alston
I've also had very good luck with recipes from the Epicurious website. I normally make an average size muffin not a huge one. But I also make lots of mini muffins and my experience is that they tend to dry out quickly, not the larger ones. But cutting down oven temp and time is very important when using a cake recipe for muffins.
Good Luck.

[cookieguy]

Bread flour is definitely not the way to go. That is a hard flour with too much protein. Use a formula suitable for cake flour (bleached) if available or a formula geared to all purpose flour.