Muffins not fluffy

IceBus · 2 Jul 2011 at 22:12

Hey all... I was wondering if any other pastry chefs could diagnose where I'm going wrong.

I'm using this recipe for Blueberry muffins.

First time I cooked them, great success, light fluffy yogurty blueberry muffins. However, subsequently they've turned out quite dense and heavy (second time was very rubbery).

I'm mixing the wet and dry ingredients with only 5-6 strokes (flour is well sifted) so I don't think I'm overworking the mixture. Possible things I can think of:

1) Melting the butter in the microwave it always ends up bubbling (even when done on a low heat) - could the fat be separating?

2) First time round I mixed the sugar with the wet ingredients (to dissolve it before folding on) - something I haven't done since.

Any ideas would be much appreciated

soullessfire · 3 Jul 2011 at 14:16

I doubt anything you mentioned is to blame in all honesty. Is the flour ok? sometimes if it's been sat about for a bit it just won't rise so well.

I have a great recipe for lemon poppyseed muffins which uses double the ingredients of yours (but that's ok), the only thing is it also uses a teaspoon of baking powder... Just wondering if half that in your mix might give it a bit of extra lift?

IceBus · 3 Jul 2011 at 14:32

My SR flour was only opened a couple of weeks ago, but I was wondering about adding some raising agent too - I'll give that a shot and see how it goes. I'll report back!

soullessfire · 3 Jul 2011 at 14:55

What makes me scratch my head is that she says to fill them 85% full, yet those muffins are barely peeking over the top of the wrapper. When I do mine, I put 2 dessert spoons in each so it's certainly less than 50% and mine end up 1-2 cm above the wrapper easily.

IceBus · 3 Jul 2011 at 15:38

soullessfire said:
What makes me scratch my head is that she says to fill them 85% full, yet those muffins are barely peeking over the top of the wrapper. When I do mine, I put 2 dessert spoons in each so it's certainly less than 50% and mine end up 1-2 cm above the wrapper easily.

First time round I filled them 3/4 full and they only just peeked about 1cm above the top, so I'm guessing it may be something to do with the acidity in the yoghurt knocking out some of the raising power of the flour.

Out of interest, have you got your recipe to hand? I'd be interested to compare the ingredient breakdown.

soullessfire · 3 Jul 2011 at 15:56

Yeah I do but this one's a full fat with added fat type one so not for everyday use. Pretty easy and IMO foolproof though, never had a bad result with it.

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/lemon-poppy-seed-muffin-1199