Ok, im at my wits end. As some of you know Im opening a cupcake cafe/cake shop in January. as well as a coffee shop/cupcakes il be doing flapjacks, brownies, etc and also muffins.

I have made muffins a couple of years ago when i just got into baking but havnt made any since since the cakes took off and I havent really had time to bake buns, etc for fun like i used to.....

well recently Ive been practicing and everything is just how I remembered it - cookies, flapjacks, brownies, biscuits, etc etc but my muffins are awful!! im literally about to crack up - i made lemon ones which didnt rise and looked like cupcakes and tasted of nothing, i made chocolate ones - same thing happened tastless cupcakes and then today I went back to an old receipe i knew worked - Nigella Lawson's snickers and peanut butter muffins which i remember as being the best thing I ever made - and they are hideous - burnt on top, rose and cracked a bit but not great and were tasteless - is it me and am i just too used to the whole light sponge with buttercream cause ive been eating so many cupcakes or what???

Has anyone got a good receipe for american style giant muffins that can be easily adapted to different flavours??

Im running out of time and everything else is ready to go apart from muffins which are supposed to be a lot of my breakfast sales!!

Hi Cathy, not sure if you can buy this product in your location but it makes the best muffins. It's called "creme cake base" and it's made by pillsbury. I buy it from a bakery supply house here in Omaha Ne. I buy it buy the 50lb bags. There is a standard recipe on the bag for muffins and you can add different ingredients such as fruits, chips, nut, extracts etc... to make variations. Creme cake base comes in white and chocolate. You will love it. It makes a light, cakey muffin. Let me know if you have any questions, I have used it for years and had much success

Kelly

This isn't an all purpose recipe but bran muffins are probably the most popular of North American muffins and this recipe is almost impossible to mess up Works with raisins, cranberries, blueberries...

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Classic-Bran-Muffins/Detail.aspx

You should make some scones. they are delicious and hard to mess up. I know from experience.

hahahhahaa dont even talk to me about scones........ i dont like them and they dont like me

horrid, tastless doughy things - urgh!

thought muffins were the way to go but now i cant even get them right got Susan Reimers book from amazon coming so hopefully it might point me in the right direction

Make sure that your ingredients are fresh/not expired. A couple of months back, I was having a lot of issues with the taste and rise of a few cake recipes that I knew worked. I realized that it was because the self-rising flour I was using was not good.

I've never been a big fan of the bald cupcake - either eat cake or don't, no point trying to be healthy about it however I have tried a few recipes from the Australian womens weekly and they usually turn out ok - they are fairly easy to find online. Just bear in mind a cup is 250ml and a tbsp is 20ml!

Try some of the Otis Spunkmeyer recipes from this site:

http://www.copykat.com/2009/02/06/otis-spunkmeyer-blueberry-muffins/

They're very good. If you want my pumpkin bread recipe you can use that for pumpkin muffins and pumpkin bread both. Just let me know and I'll be happy to PM you with it.

Ok, think i overreacted a little - found another wee cupcake book in my cupboard with muffin receiipes in the back and made the blueberry receipe except with frozen raspberrys and i added extra sugar from 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup and they were gorgeous!

think America definitly has the right idea when it comes to muffin receipes - i loath using cups but i dug out my set from the Pound Shop and the receipe was definitly much better than the english counterparts. hopefully my new books will also be good but at least i have one receipe i can adapt!

Cathy, congratulations on you new shop, how exciting! I love muffins, glad you seem to have figured everything out, hope you find a bunch of successful recipes. I just wanted to show you these liners, you may have seen them before, but I love them for muffins, they just add something to the presentation. They are Tulip liners and I bake all of my muffins in them and everyone always oohs and aahhs. I do not like them for cupcakes though. Anyhow just thought I'd show them to you in case they are something you might be interested in. Best of luck! Andrea

(also I only use the brown ones, the white ones are too see-thru)

Hi! yep those brown tulip ones are exactly what im going to use, they look more professional - i found a wholesale supplier who is doing them for about 5p each in the uk so once I get my keys I'll be getting everything ordered asap

I´m sorry for OT, but what is the diefference between muffins and cupcakes? I always thought that muffin is the german translation for cupcakes...
these liners are great! Is there a posibillity for doing them yourself?

cupcakes are like little light sponge fairy cakes with frosting on top so very very sweet whereas muffins are like huge knobbly cracked on top overflowing cakes with loads of fruit and choc chunks, etc and are a lot less sweet since they dont have frosting. they tend to be aimed more at the breakfast side of things whereas cupcakes are definitly too sweet for breakfast.

cupcakes tend to be equal butter, sugar, flour and then eggs and flavouring all beaten up together like cake whereas with muffins all the dry ingredients are mixed in one bowl and the liquid ones in another bowl and then the liquid is poured in and very lightly mixed through so its only just combined and then its spooned into the papers. if you beat or overmix the mixture then its hideous and tough.....

The difference between CCs, and Muffins are that in muffins your FAT is liquid. That's the difference.

Mike

This is my all time fave blueberry muffin recipe. During a taste test with my family this one hands down.

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/6843/blueberry-muffins

Good luck with your new cafe/bakery!

You seem to have figured out the problem, Good luck with your bakery/Cafe, for American bakers, where can I find those liners.

I always find that getting the oven temp just right is a big thing with muffins so only opening the door for the shortest time possible.
Wishing you every success with your shop.