Quick Breads and Muffins: Recipes, Methods, and Tips
A Guide to Quick Breads and Muffins! How to make them, what ingredients to include, and recipes to try!
Quick Breads and Muffins: The Gateway To Baking
While cooking is a creative art with different ingredients, spices, and flavors being combined based off of a cook’s experience, desire, or whim, baking is a more precise and scientific approach to creating food.
I often hear people say, “I love to cook, but I hate to bake!”. I find this amusing, since success in baking requires you to follow a specific set of instructions, making it simple to get great results more consistently! Now, I fully understand what these people mean: adding a spoonful of this or that will greatly impact the structure, texture, and taste of a baked good, limiting creativity. However, if you know the basics about the ingredients going into your recipes, it’s easier to choose your own adventure when you bake!
Today we’re talking all about a very simple method that is a great gateway if you’re wanting to explore baking. Quick breads and muffins are made the same way: flour, sugar, fat, and eggs serve as the main ingredients for many different recipes. Read on to learn more about the importance of these ingredients, the proper ratio to consider in your recipes, and a few delicious ideas for you to try yourself!
What Is A Quick Bread?
In order for bread to have its quintessential light and chewy bite, a leavener is required to allow the dough to rise. In some bread recipes, this means yeast or a sourdough starter are used, but these breads require a bit more time for the ingredients to interact. A quick bread, of course, means the overall time required is far less than the aforementioned loaves.
Many common recipes for baking call for baking powder and baking soda: both are considered chemical leavening agents. You’ll see many recipes that call for both of these ingredients. You can learn more about the Basics Of Baking in this article!
Ingredients Used In Quick Breads And Muffins
Quick bread and muffin recipes include the same basic ingredients:
- Flour: All-purpose is the best place to start with quick breads and muffins. There are obviously so many other flour types to consider and experiment with, but the structure of your finished product will alter. I recommend starting with all-purpose (or a gluten free substitute, if needed).
- Baking Powder and Baking Soda: These ingredients serve as the leavener, allowing the dough to rise which results in the light and airy texture associated with quick breads and muffins.
- Sugar: White sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, and honey are commonly used to sweeten, or a mixture to create unique flavor and texture.
- Eggs: Offering structure to baked goods, eggs are used to bind ingredients together, resulting in volume and overall structure.
- Fat: Butter, oil, shortening, or margarine are all options to use in quick breads and muffins. You’ll notice a difference in the texture depending on which fat you go with, where oil will offer lighter and more airy texture, while butter will offer a more dense bite.
Recipe Structure: How To Make Muffins And Quick Breads
The basic structure of a quick bread or muffin recipe is as follows:
- Combine sugar and fat until combined. This is commonly listed as “creaming” in many recipes.
- Mix dry ingredients, like flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl.
- Add dry ingredients in phases to the sugar and fat mixture.
- If a liquid component is being used in the recipe (such as milk), alternate with dry ingredients to add to the fat and sugar mixture until just combined.
- Transfer batter to prepared pan and bake until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean.
Quick Breads, Muffins, And Other Baked Goods To Try!
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