History of Muffins

Moufflet means soft bread in French. This is the origin of the word muffin. Only few people know that until todays mostly sweet muffin it went through a lot of changes. We will show you how it happened.

The muffins were already famous in the English regions, mainly in Wales during the 10th century. And who would have thought that the servants of the aristocrats started to make if from leftover cakes. However, over the centuries it is crept over into the elite kitchens as well. Nothing illustrates it better than the “muffin-men” from the 18th century. They sold these delicacies to the passersby. Then it became an indispensable participant of afternoon teas and dinners. It was also prepared by the common folk because it was so simple to make. The American version of the muffin is a little bit different. Originally it is called cupcake and only made of flour, eggs, butter and sugar. The name surrounded by two legends. We don’t know exactly if they bake these cookies in cups or the ingredients were measured by cups. The cupcake’s characteristic is that their surface is flat and decorated with various sugar or chocolate glaze. The mixture of these two recipes are the muffin what we know today. But today only the imagination can set a limit to decoration, filling and flavor ideas.