Duff Muffin (Muffins Fast and Fantastic - Susan Reimer)

Member Name: pjs21

Product:	Muffins Fast and Fantastic - Susan Reimer
Date:	11/05/02 (763 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of recipes

Disadvantages: They don't work

It's been awhile since I've written an opinion about something I didn't think was very good, but occasionally an item comes along that just doesn't cut the mustard with me.

This book is one of those very occasional items!

Now, every week I bake cakes, five or six cakes at that, and no, they're not even for me, they're for other people. I sometimes get to try a piece, but never get to keep a whole cake. And believe me, when you make that many cakes the last thing you want to do is eat one.

Anyhoo, I digress...

Muffins, Fast and Fantastic 3rd Edition by Susan Reimer, seemed to be the perfect answer to my dilemma of needing more than a handful of muffin recipes.

The book contains a whopping 38 muffin recipes, including Gluten-Free, and there is a full-colour photo of pretty much every muffin in there. Now you see why I got excited?

The first 11 pages are dedicated to a list of ingredients and information regarding how they change the taste or consistency of your muffin, and also to the equipment you will need.

All of this and all of the recipes are very basic and very simply written, even my father could follow them.

Some of the delicious sounding recipes included are;

Banana Muffins
Apricot Almond Muffins
Chocolate Muffins
Butterscotch Raisin Muffins
Cinnamon Crunch Muffins

(I hear somebody drooling! Jill is that you?)

Orange-Carrot Spice Muffins
Pear Ginger Muffins
Savoury Cheese Muffins

As I say, they all sound lovely, so what's the problem?

Well. They don't work.

I've now tried nine of the recipes in this book and have sobbed as I throw 12 large muffins away.

"Maybe you're making them wrong!"

I heard that!

Now, as I said at the top, I make a lot of cakes, and every week I make muffins. Banana, Blueberry, Jam-Doughnut Muffins, Honey, Lemo
n, Orange, Triple Chocolate and Raspberry, and they've all worked.

I've used recipes found in magazines as well as those from the fantastic Nigella Lawson, and they've all worked too. The perfect muffin every time - light, moist and delicious. The problem with these recipes is that they just don't cook properly, I mean they cook thoroughly, they just don?t have the correct texture at the end, they just end up like large fairy cakes. The sponge is too dense and more often than not it's far too dry, but if it was to come out any earlier it would be undercooked.

Usually this would happen if you over beat your muffin mixture, the idea being that you mix your wet and your dry ingredients separately, and then mix them together at the end until the flour is covered, but the batter is still very lumpy. If you mix it smooth you?ll just end up with a light sponge, not a muffin.

Now I've tried everything to save them, added vegetable oil to try and make them moist, replaced sugar for honey, everything I can think of and they still don?t work.

So, to conclude, if it's a book of Muffin recipes you're looking for, then look elsewhere. Take the £4.95 and go and buy yourself a large muffin to eat from somewhere instead. Or do what I do, buy How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson, bake her three doughnut recipes and then adapt them to make up your own flavours, but here's a little warning ? for 12 large muffins double the quantities, her quantities only give you enough for 6 large and not 12 as stated.

Anyway, bake muffins and grow large.

Happy eating.

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