How To: Make Light Muffins

If like me you learned how to bake over 20 years ago in the UK then you probably learned how to whisk or cream cake mixture really well, making sure all the ingredients are all well amalgamated giving it lots of air.  I had to relearn how to make muffin-style cakes and stop myself from overmixing the batter which is a cause of heavy muffins.

This style of baking is not just excluded to muffins, you can make all sorts of cakes using the same method.  The brilliance of this method is that you don’t need a whisk, no elbow grease, no effort.  Normally this mixture will have an extra bit of raising agent, it will use baking powder plus cream of tartar along side the important acid ingredient like buttermilk or yogurt or apples to give the mixture sufficient rise.  This makes up for the lack of beating air into the cake.  Once your raising agents come into contact with the acid in the recipe it’s important to proceed quickly because these will start to work together straight away and you want the mixture in the oven as soon as possible.  You can have dry and wet mixture in separate bowls well in advance.

In order not to overmix,  I like to fold it with a large spoon until it’s combined but still lumpy; lumpy is good.  You want the mixture just to come together.  These cakes can relatively take a fair amount of liquid, such as pureed fruits, like in my Double Strawberry Muffins and therefore stay moist.  If your recipe doesn’t contain extra liquid they are normally best eaten on the day of baking unless you change the melted butter for oil, that will make the cakes keep better longer.

One of my very favourite things about a freshly baked muffin-style cake is the contrast you have between the crunchy top and soft interior….can you believe some people don’t like that?

In a bowl mix all of your dried ingredients together.

In a separate bowl mix all of your wet ingredients together.

When you’re ready to bake the cakes mix the dry and wet ingredients and use a large spoon to fold it together so not to overbeat the mixture.

If you’re adding pieces of fruit or nuts add towards the end of your folding when the mixture is almost all combined.

Again using large spoon fold the pieces in just a few times.