Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Baking Muffins

I haven't had a real kitchen tip (not a recipe) for Kitchen Tip Tuesday over at Tammy's Recipes in quite a while. But, this week when I was making Carrot Raisin Muffins I realized, "Wait! I do have a kitchen tip I've never posted. And it's one I use frequently."

So here it is:

When baking muffins, preheat your oven to 375°, then when you put the muffins in the oven, raise the temperature to 400° for the baking time.

Here's the reason for this: when you preheat your oven, it will get a little bit hotter than the temperature you set it for, but then it will drop down below that temperature before the oven kicks in again. When you bake muffins you want the heat to really kick in with the baking powder quickly so the muffins will rise properly. By resetting the oven to 400° when you put them into the oven you get more rise.

I must give credit where credit is due, so, many thanks to Alton Brown's muffin episode for this tip. I bake a batch of muffins about once every two weeks, so I use this tip often. (I confess, watching Food Network is one of the things I miss not having cable. I learned a lot from Alton.)

For more great tips to make life in the kitchen easier be sure to visit Tammy's Recipes today.

4 comments:

mub said...

How cool, I'm going to give this a try next time I make muffins!

Lenetta said...

We love Alton at our house, too! I get a kick out of hearing my 2 year old say "oh, bother!" It's always cool to learn the science behind cooking. Thanks for sharing!

annies home said...

I also let mine sit in the tin just a few minutes before baking I have always did this grandma said that it makes a difference. Did not know about the temp deal but do now

Andrea said...

I tried this and it worked! My (well, Grace helped too) muffins rose much higher than usual and got a little bit of "tower" action into them! Thanks so much for posting this tip!

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