I'm not suggesting that we should ferment muffin batters in warm places for long periods of time. I am bringing up the term "proofing" here (as opposed to "resting"), because I am wondering if the activation of the chemical leavener during the resting of a muffin batter is like a very quick proofing process. I've also used the bakery formulas at home (without resting the batter) and did not get large caps.Ĭlara123, your experience with cakes doming after resting the batter is consistent with other things I've heard around the internet. I have worked in a bakery, where I successfully produced large capped muffins, and the batter formulas did not include significantly large quanitities of eggs. I am dubious that the amount of eggs in the batter is key to bakery-style muffin caps. Thomaschacon, I do of course include eggs in my muffin batters, but of course there's room to fiddle with the amount included in the formula. Put a different way: is it possible or even desirable to include "proofing" time in a muffin formula? I am wondering if it is possible to think of chemical leavened batters as on a continuum with yeast-raised doughs, as opposed to putting them into entirely separate categories. But, in advance, I'm interested in feedback from you folks, who have so much knowledge about leavening. This weekend, I plan to make a few muffin batters and baking after various stages of resting. This is a piece of popular wisdom that, on reflection, seems unsupported by my experience. I have heard many home bakers insist that chemically leavened batter will die if not baked immediately. Also, the leavener has time to do some work, and so the batter goes through a kind of "proofing" process. The flour has time to hydrate and thicken, and develop a modest amount of gluten. That the resting would produce doming makes sense. Then, after some googling, I found posts by other home bakers who had unintentionally left muffin or cupcake batter to sit before baking, and found that it domed a lot when baked. Yesterday, it occurred to me that the muffin batters in the bakery were always made ahead of time and chilled. I started to believe that commercial convection and commercial crown muffin pans were necessary for proper muffin caps. However, when I used the bakery formulas at home, the results were not the same. High heat, thick batter, and filling the cups generously seem to be key to getting volume, but I can never the particular shape of dome I wanted.įrustrating, especially given that I've worked at a bakery where I consistently produced countless muffins with the dome I had in mind. It seems I've tried every trick in the book, usually with only modest success. I've recently become familiar with the theory that resting muffin batters (or other chemically leavened batters) prior to baking increases "doming" during the baking process.įor years, I've been trying to create muffins with bakery-style caps at home.
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