Hello everybody!!I need help with...MUFFINS!!!

[mogador]

Hi!!!

I'm a pastry chef from Spain and I hope we can help each other many times in the future! If I can help any of you, please let me know!

I'm new to this forum and I need your help...
I've been to the USA several times and I love some of your pastries which I'm unable to make at home

I suppose the problem is that I don't have the correct recipe because I've tried the following recipes many, many times without success...
I'm talking about MUFFINS - CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS AND BLUEBERRY MUFFINS.

I just love them and I've bought so many books, search in Internet and tried so many recipes but they aren't the same as at the pastry shops where the muffins have that marvellous round shape and they are so perfect and big!!!!!!!

So, I've tried some other times to ask the recipes in some pastry shops and they've showed me the batter which is a frozen one...so I don't know where to find a really good muffin recipe where the muffin will be round and will grow up and won't be flat at the end of the cooking process...

Well, apart of that, I'm very interested in a CINAMMON ROLL RECIPE AND AN APPLE DANISH RECIPE (DANISH PASTRY).
I don't know if some of you could help me, but I really hope so!

If you need help with some recipe from Spain, please let me know and I'll do my best to help you.
I got married 2 months ago and I was in Las Vegas and we were staying in the Paris Hotel Las Vegas. There was a wonderful boulangerie and they baked wonderful danish pastries and muffins. I met the Chef but he refused to let me know the recipes, so I just hope some of you can help me...you are my last hope!!!!!!!!

WELL, THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOO MUCH IN ADVANCE!
I'll be more than glad to help you if I can!

Kindest regards,
Susana

[Breton Beats]

The reason it is so hard to make muffins in Spain (Europe) is because baking powder/baking soda is very hard to find, if at all possible. I was a private chef for many years on yachts in Spain, France, and Italy. Whenever I had American and English clients I always had to use boxed muffin mixes or order baking powder.

Some english or american expat stores will carry it (it will be spendy). Also I have been told that in Europe they sell flour that has levening products in it. I am not familiar with that product but maybe someone else on this forum is.

As far as making big giant fluffy muffins. This is probably a product of another, more industrial chemical. As you may have noticed. The general American market is convinced that the BIGGER something is the BETTER it must be. I would choose just a very good recipe. (Look below).

What Americans call Danish is often crap. An industrial ingredient that filled with sugars, and leveners, with tons of artificial fruit on top. If you expereince with Danish was in an artisan bakeshop then perhaps you had the real thing. It is a very difficult dough to work with. It is a laminated dough, like croissants, but more tender. It takes a lot of practice to make it right, and is only really feasable if you are making it in a big bakeshop. Any professional pastry book should have it. If not look for a French, Swiss, German, or Austrian Professional pastry book. Danish pastry is more prevelant there and you will find some formulas written for European cooks.

If you have access to an English Book shop go in a see if you can score a copy of "the Joy of Cooking" (maybe it is in Spanish?) Don't get the American version. The one sold abroad gives amounts in metric and European quanitities. In my opinion it is one of the best books for traditional "American" foods.

Below is the basic muffin recipe from Joy of Cooking. (in American measurments )

Basic Muffins
2 Cups A-P Flour
1 Table Baking Powder
1/2 teas. Salt
Whisk together in one bowl, set aside.

2 Eggs
1 Cup Milk or Cream
2/3 Cup Sugar
2-4 oz. Melted Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla
Whisk together, add to dry ingredients.

Divide among muffin tin cups, bake about 10-15 minutes (325-350F) until down (like cake).

You can add anything you wan to spice up this batter. Zest, Nuts, Chocolate, Seeds, Spices, Cheese, Fruit, Dried Fruit, etc....etc....

P.S. In my opinion chefs who refuse to share recipes are putzes and insecure. It takes more than the right recipe to make a good product and unless you were the bakery next door (ie. direct competition) selfish not to share an american formula with a professional from another country.

Happy baking.

[jessiquina]

i found that if you do not open the oven door for at least 15 minutes, the muffins will keep their high top. im the only one at my job who can make nice muffin tops! now, every oven is different, but try to not even rotate the muffin pan the first time. i'd give you my recipe, but its at work right now..

[mogador]

Thank you so much to bothe of you!
I'll try this new recipe but if the problem is the baking powder...that will be a little harder to arrange!
Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to answer and for the recipe, I will definitely try it out without opening the door for the first 15 minutes!

[MrPastry]

one of your other challenges mogador, is that the flour in Europe is much lower in protein than in North America.
i am not sue what the grades are in Spain, but in Germany they refer to 405 and 550. 550 is what is mostly used for breads - this would also be best to lend your muffins some strength so they mushroom nicely. Low protein and the muffin top skins over and binds too quickly, and the muffins are flat, and/or cap - blow out the sides. try even adding some gluten or high protein soya flour. Adjust with wheat starch or cornstach for mor tenderness in the crumb. Don't regulate the batter viscosity 9how thick or runny it is) with medefied starch, or the muffins will cap again. Use a combo of xanthan and cellulose gums to achieve this.

As has been mentioned, finding baking powder is not to difficult in Europe, but baking soda is often hard to find. In the 70's and 80's one had to go to an apothecary to buy soda, or maybe a health food store. ironiacally soda is a chemical and not consider a natural ingredient when attemptingto make any "all natural" claims. Baking powder esentially has the leavening acids blended in already (sodium acid pyrophophate, and/or monocalcium phosphate,and/or sodium aluminum phosphate). If you are using butter milk, you will want to use either only or mostly baking soda and little or no baking powder, or the muffins will blow up and collapse in on themselves.