Ultimate Buffin Challenge - Triple Tested #12 (Steemit Exclusive)
Ultimate Buffin Challenge - Triple Tested #12
My fellow Steemians,
On my journeys with Triple Tested I have made delicious muffins and many chewy, chocolatey brownies. It has been a calorie fuelled ride.
A little birdy gave me the idea that if you could make a muffin but the stump of the muffin was actually brownie then you would potentially have a million dollar idea. So I have begun my experimentation to create a true brownie muffin — or buffin! I have my first attempt to show off here today.
The Method
The hardware for this experiment was my jumbo muffin tins (6 x 2 = 12 jumbo muffins).
I used a brownie recipe I’ve been playing around with as the base. It is part of my second round of brownie challenge after the disappointments I wrote about in my blog. This recipe is dense and chewy, uses both sugar and brown sugar and it uses natural cocoa powder. It’s pretty good. I divided the brownie equally among all the muffin wells which equalled 1/3 cup of batter per muffin.
Then I used the jumbo chocolate chip muffin recipe from my muffin Triple Tested blog entry as the top. This recipe makes a lot of batter, enough for 9 full jumbo muffins, so I decided to half the recipe. This worked out pretty well, I was able to top 11 of my 12 brownie cups with muffin batter.
The baking temperature and time was a huge question. The brownie recipe is supposed to be baked low and slow where the muffins are high and fast. Internet research ultimately showed me that brownies are pretty versatile when it comes to temperature as long as you adapt the time accordingly. I knew texture might suffer but I had to start somewhere. So I put my hybrid beauties in at 425 F for 5 minutes (to try and get a boost in the muffin rise) then brought it down to 375 F for 18 minutes.
The Results
They baked all the way through and the brownies didn’t dry out. Yes!
Upon examination the consensus was that there was too much brownie batter and not enough muffin. The end product was basically a brownie with a thin layer of muffin on top and that thin layer doesn’t pack much of a punch. It gets lost.
An odd thing is that the brownie has no leavener and the muffin has a lot in it. But it appears during baking the brownie actually rose quite a bit and the muffin didn’t. The muffin kind of just absorbed the impact of the brownie and the resulting product in total didn’t really rise at all. I wasn’t expecting the baking soda and baking powder to react with the brownie batter that dramatically upon surface contact. But it really appears that’s what happened.
Next Steps
I’m going to continue to play around with this concept. I will change the ratios of brownie to muffin. I will also consider trying them in a standard muffin tin instead of the jumbo tin. I have a lot of work ahead of me. Tasty work.