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So easy to make and fun to serve – muffins can be dainty or jumbo size, plain or dressed up. Best served warm with lots of butter.

The secret for making light tender muffins is to stir only a few strokes – the batter should look lumpy. If the batter is over beaten, the muffins will have dull crusts with peaks on top., and they will be coarse, tough, and full of tunnels. Perfect muffins are light and tender, have a moist crumb, straight sides and a slightly rounded top with a rough, shiny, golden brown crust.

Standard and biscuit methods are the most common muffin methods used:

Standard method – Sift dry ingredients into bowl; make well in the center. Combine egg, milk, and salad oil or melted shortening. (Cool shortening slightly.) Add to dry ingredients all at once. Stir quickly only until dry ingredients are moistened.

Biscuit method – Cut solid shortening into sifted dry ingredients until pieces are the size of small peas. Beat egg until thick and foamy; stir in milk and add to flour mixture.

To avoid over stirring, use spoon to push flour from edge of bowl toward center, turning bowl slowly. Go once around the bowl; then chop straight through mixture several times with spoon to combine ingredients further (without stirring). Stir just enough to dampen all the flour.

When muffins have to wait after baking, tip them to one side in the pan to prevent steaming the crusts; keep warm.

To reheat muffins, wrap in foil and heat in hot oven for 15 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 ¾ cups sifted all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 well beaten egg
• ¾ cup milk
• 1/3 cup salad oil or melted shortening

Method

Stir together dry ingredients; make a well in the center (or use the biscuit method). Combine egg, milk, and salad oil. Add all at once to dry mixture. Stir quickly only until dry ingredients are moistened. Fill greased muffin pans or paper bake cups 2/3 full. Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.

If you are looking for more easy muffin recipes, just go to Favorite Muffins for lots of muffin recipes.