Do you know the Muffin Man?

No really. Cause I'd really like to ask him a couple of questions about his so called Muffin Method.

Bakeshop started tonight with Chef Miar going over the finer points of "The Muffin Method" which is basically the method used to make quick breads.

What is a Quick bread? A quick bread is a bread that is made without the traditional leavening method of fermentation that is found with Yeast Breads. Ever wonder what baking soda and baking powder are doing for your recipe? Well they are chemical leaveners and pretty much the basis of all quick breads.

There are four rules to good quick breads according to chef and they are as follows:

1. Dry ingredients go in one bowl
2. Wet ingredients go in another bowl.
3. Add the wet to the dry a bit at a time, incorporating and keeping an eye out for batter consistency. When you drag your spoon through the center you should be able to see the bottom of your bowl for a couple of seconds before the batter comes back on itself similar to when you cook a sauce until 'nappe'.
   
4. DO NOT OVER MIX! This is vital.  Also, avoid mixing the batter quickly or with a lot of aggression. This will tighten up the gluten resulting in tough dry muffins that double as hockey pucks.  Stirring too aggressively can also cause tunneling, which is when pockets of air are trapped in your muffins resulting in holes.

And speaking of tender, when possible use milk instead of water when making muffins. The fat in milk will help keep the gluten in its place and keep your batter tender. Using the right flour will also help tame the gluten. Try to stay away are bread flours or other high gluten flours when making quick breads and instead try to use cake or pastry flour.  

Tonight we made blueberry, cornbread with cheese, and zucchini/carrot/bran muffins, all of which turned out. A couple of tips from chef, instead of using a scoop to fill the muffin papers try piping the batter in with a pastry bag and a large tip (or no tip at all). This will give your muffins a professional appearance and help keep a consistency in size. Try not to overfill the cups (bigger isn't always better!) and you'll have less of a headache cleaning up as they'll stay put in the papers and not spill over unto your pan.

In the next few days I'll hopefully be able to post the recipes as well as some pictures, unfortunately they are currently all in grams in ounces which are hard to measure unless you have a scale.

Happy Ba(c)in!