Basic Muffin Recipe

Whether you fancy yourself a baker or not, every kitchen needs a muffin recipe. Start with a basic muffin recipe that can be adapted to suit your mood or the muffin ingredients you have on hand and you'll soon find that the variations are seemingly endless.

Breakfast Muffins
When it comes to breakfast, muffins complement almost any breakfast, but go especially well with fresh fruit or scrambled eggs. Depending on the ingredients you have on hand, you can adapt this basic recipe to make low-carb muffins, healthy muffins with nuts or flax seeds or you can stick with classics like blueberry muffins and bran muffins.

Basic Muffin Mix
This is a sweet, firm muffin. Consider adding chopped nuts, adding a dash of nutmeg or ginger or mixing in ½ cup of finely grated carrots to turn these into carrot muffins.

Ingredients You Will Need:

• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 ½ cup flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup softened butter
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• ½ cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl, taking care to sift the baking powder and cinnamon evenly throughout the flour. In another bowl, cream butter, sugar and eggs together before adding the milk. Add mixture to your dry ingredients, mixing slowly until ingredients are just combined. Do not beat or whip. The batter will be thick. Spoon mixture into greased muffin tins. Place tins in the oven and bake for 14 to 17 minutes.

Dinner Muffins
This muffin is similar in texture to a corn muffin. Best fresh from the oven with pats of butter, it's a nice change from the traditional dinner roll. Serve them beside soups and stews, casseroles or roasted chicken. When baking, skip the muffin tin liners. This muffin has a crumbly texture and baking them directly in the tin helps them to hold their form. To avoid sticking, remove muffins from the tins immediately and cool on a wire rack.

Ingredients You Will Need:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 ½ tablespoons baking powder
• ½ tablespoon baking soda
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• ¼ cup oil
• 4 tablespoons sugar-free maple syrup

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In one bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, milk, oil and syrup. Gently pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix.  The batter will rise quickly. Spoon into greased muffin tins and bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean.

Dessert Muffins
Dessert muffins are dense and very moist. In this recipe, the cocoa butter from the white chocolate chips adds to the richness. If you opt out of using white chocolate or chocolate chips, increase the sugar to ½ cup to achieve the desired level of sweetness.

To keep chips and nuts from tumbling to the bottom of the tins, put them into a measuring cup and sprinkle a half teaspoon of flour over them before adding to the batter. Make dessert muffins healthier by substituting a ripe banana or applesauce for the oil.

Ingredients You Will Need:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 ½  teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup oil (or ¼ cup applesauce)
• Pinch of salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• ½ cup unsweetened dried coconut
• ½ cup white chocolate chips
• ½ cup chopped nuts

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl; set aside. Whip cream, milk, egg and sugar together and fold in the oil or applesauce. Pour entire mixture into dry ingredients and gently mix with a fork. When ingredients are combined, add white chocolate chips, coconut and chopped nuts. Stir until add ins are just moistened. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes.

Tips for Baking Muffins

• Muffins should always be mixed lightly. Batter should be thick or slightly lumpy.
• To prevent fruit, nuts and other add ins from sinking to the bottom of your muffins, coat them lightly with flour before adding to the batter.
• Fill muffin tins ½ to �" full to prevent overflow.
• Muffins baked directly in the tin hold their form better than muffins baked in liners.
• Grease muffin tins with butter to prevent sticking and infuse the muffins with rich flavor.
• Use a small ice cream scoop to portion batter into muffin tins.
• If you don't have enough batter to fill the muffin tin, fill the empty spaces with water to promote even baking and prevent the muffins from drying out at the edges.
• If you're using a dark-colored muffin tin, reduce the oven temperature called for in the recipe by 25 degrees to prevent muffins from browning too much or drying out.