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Muffins FAQ

What's better than a blueberry muffin on Saturday morning? Or what's a nicer less-sweet snack than muffins for your kids after school? Plus making them is just about the easiest way to learn to bake!

Use shiny muffin pans for golden and tender muffin crusts. See The Basics of Bakeware for more help on pans.
For nicely shaped muffins with rounded tops and no "edges with ledges," most recipes have you grease only the bottoms of the muffin cups with shortening.
For easy baking and easy cleanup, use paper baking cups.
Measure with care. If you don't, a coarse or crumbly texture and dryness can be the result.
The batter should be lumpy after you stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. If you mix the batter too much, muffins can be tough with "peaked" tops and holes or tunnels inside.
Take the guesswork out of filling muffin cups by using a spring-handled ice-cream scoop! Scoops marked with a No. 20 or 24 get most muffin cups about 3/4 full--the amount you need for the rounded tops you want.
End up with empty cups in your pan? If you've greased them, fill the empty ones half full with water. It keeps the grease from burning and all the cups will bake more evenly.
When muffins are done, take them out of the muffin pan immediately so they don't get soggy. If you need to, loosen them with a table knife, then lift them out. If a recipe has you leave the muffins in the pan for a few minutes after baking, those muffins are more fragile and need to be set up a bit so you can remove them easily.
Muffins baked in paper cups should lift right out.
Serve muffins while they're good and hot!

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