Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

The pick for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie gang is the recipe for Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins.  They were suggested by Betsy of A Cup of Sweetness.  Thanks Betsy!

I baked the muffins with the intention of taking them to Dr. Tom's for brunch but Dr. Tom called to say that his furnace had gone out and brunch was cancelled!  I suppose that a true friend would have braved the foot of new snow to deliver the muffins to Dr. Tom.  However he discouraged unnecessary travel that day so I passed the muffins on to my son who was going to a birthday celebration.  The muffins were very well received and the birthday folks especially liked the very lemony frosting.  Another hit from Baking!

But what I really want to talk about is my muffin pan.  It's an aluminum Ecco pan and because these muffins are rather light in color, the uneven baking results were very noticeable.
The tops of the muffins.

The bottoms of two muffins
The bottoms of the two most dramatically different muffins.


I baked one dozen muffins, the muffin tin was on a cookie sheet, and I rotated the muffins once during the baking.  So why did they bake so unevenly?  Do I need a new pan?  Should I try silicon?  My husband suggests I use the "Convection convert" button on the oven so that the fan will come on and move the air around.  Any ideas?

6 comments:

  1. My muffins didn't bake very even either. The middle muffins were very light the corner muffins darker. I used a new tin and did not rotate half way. It's a mystery. But they were delicious. I think my oven is on the way out.

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  2. Huh... I am not sure I have any advice. It sounds like the uneven baking didn't phase anyone. :)

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  3. I use the silicone baking cups and I love them!! I still think the muffins look great!

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  4. How interesting! That really is a difference. I keep my baking stone in the oven all the time, since I don't really have a place for it. Maybe a stone would make for more even baking? I don't know. I haven't used silicone for muffins, though Flourchild's were really cute this week. I have a wilton pan from Walmart (I think) that I think was only about $10. I also have what I'm betting is the same ecco pan, but the Wilton's nontstick is nicer, so I use it first :) I like that Dorie's recipes only call for 12!
    I'm interested in how you resolve this!

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  5. They look like they were tasty and well-liked! It looks like your pan isn't uniform. If you're the experimental type, you may want to bake etch an "x" on the bottom of one of the cups and bake a couple batches of muffins to see if it's always the same cups that over bake. I have Baker's Secret (from the grocery store). They're supposedly non-stick. Of course, they aren't really non-stick, but I just butter them pretty well. If your oven is usually OK without using the convection conversion feature, I don't think it will help this time. I think you're on the right track, it's your pan.

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  6. Thanks for baking with me this week! I am sure they were still delicious.

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