Muffins Sweetness Beyond Breakfast

 From their coveted tops to doughy bottoms, muffins are heavyweight performers, rising gracefully from breakfast sweet, to mini meal in a cup, to star of the sweet table. 

Back to Drury Lane. In 19^th century England, the original muffin men were heard as well as seen, walking the streets with trays of muffins on their heads and ringing their bells at teatime to attract hungry customers. English muffins were quite plain, a small flat roll of yeast dough, made to serve with tea. The American muffin was different from the start, modeled more after a cake than a plain crumpet, made from flour, cornmeal or bran, with baking powder as the leavening agent. Colonial cooks stuck to a fairly standard repertoire of bran, corn, date, apple, and oatmeal, with blueberry muffins having a special place at the table. Evolving from a Native American dish called Sautauthig, made from wild blueberries, dried, cracked corn and water, settlers later added milk, butter and sugar when available, and historians believe it was part of the first Thanksgiving feast. In the 1920s, muffins with meat (ham and bacon muffins) and vegetables (pumpkin or squash muffins) were added to the growing list of recipes; by 1998, there were enough variations to fill Gregg Gillespie’s “1001” recipe series.

Muffin mania continues. Mini, one-inchers, or at the other end of the muffin scale, the jumbo, muffins stuffed with cream cheese, caramel, fruit or chocolate, whole grain cheese and mustard, gluten-free cornmeal fig and orange muffins…if you can think it, someone has made a muffin of it. In 2012, muffin sales heated up, with sales rising almost 9% around the country, according to Nielsen Perishables Group. Chefs continue their quest to create the perfect muffin—most recent was the Chow Challenge for Best Muffin Recipe. The winning Meyer Lemon/Blueberry Muffin incorporates the zest of 3 to 4 medium Meyer lemons for a “darn near perfect muffin!”  Food writer Deb Perelman experimented with seven different muffin recipes over the course of a year before she discovered the perfect blend of diced plums and poppy seeds, and published it in her best-selling 2012 Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Her hard-earned advice: “Dial back the sugar, use a little whole-wheat flour to keep muffins squarely in the breakfast department, make a thick batter, almost like cookie dough, to keep fruit from sinking, and use butter, not olive oil.”

Top this. The muffin top has been riding high by itself for years, beginning with its ‘90s breakthrough role on Seinfeld, in which Elaine convinces her boss to open a “Top of the Muffin!” shop, saying: “It's the best part. It's crunchy, it's explosive, and it’s where the muffin breaks free of the pan and sort of does its own thing. That’s a million dollar idea, just sell the tops.” Turns out she was right, as muffin tops became legitimately big sellers in the next decade, giving people exactly the part they wanted and no more. In the health-conscious 2000s, the term became associated with those pesky rolls of flesh hanging over low-rise jeans, but food historian Betty Fussell says it was a reaction to the low fat muffin craze of the time. “To compensate for the reduction of fat, which is a conveyor of flavor, and also a tenderizer and moistening agent, manufacturers and bakers increased the sugar, resulting in an overly sweet flavor profile and a soft, sticky-to-the touch muffin top.”  Not at all what Elaine had in mind! While some pastry chefs contend there’s little difference between a muffin and a cupcake, others disagree, and say it’s actually pretty simple: “As soon as you start creaming the butter and sugar together, that’s cake, not muffin,” explains Magnolia Bakery owner Bobbie Lloyd. That’s why she makes her renowned blueberry muffins the old fashioned way, like a quick bread, combining dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another, and then lightly mixing the two together, to get a fluffy inside and crunchy top.

State of the muffin. The muffin is serious business in some states across the country - Minnesota, where the blueberry muffin is the state’s official choice, in Massachusetts, where the corn muffin reigns, and in New York, home of the apple muffin.

Big ol’ Muffins lay on the southern charm at US Foods™

SOURCES:

American Century Cookbook

Oxford Companion to Food

US Highbush Blueberry Council

Boston Globe

Food Timeline.org