"spamalicious" wrote in message
news:7Cd2d.20005$z_3.3055@trndny07...
Eric Jorgensen wrote:
My thought was that the crust difference could be due to flour
measuring
differences and over-mixing.

too much or too little flour will obviously affect the texture. The
other point - traditionally when making american muffins, the flour and
dry
leavening agents are mixed fully and then the rest of it is just sort of
dumped together into a lumpy mix. This can result in a crusty texture on
the top.

Eric gets the prize for the closest answer without going over!

I made another batch this a.m. (yup, at 4:00 am...) and the end result
was "pretty close to the same" as the innkeeper's muffins as my husband
put it.

I changed a few things in my technique:
- I spooned the flour into the measuring cup instead of scooping the
flour with the m. cup
- I added the fruit and chocolate to the dry mix first
- I added the wet ingredients last, mixing only until the liquid was
incorporated into the dry ingredients
- I also added a pinch of salt - don't know if that made a difference.

I had also increased the preheating temp of my oven to 400F and when I
was ready to put the muffin tins in, I decreased the temp to the
recipe's baking temp. I read that tip here.

The muffins were nicely browned and crusty on the exterior and fluffy on
the inside. What a huge difference from my first anemic batch of muffins.

I think the flour measuring and mixing made the biggest difference. Not
sure if anything else did, but I won't be changing anything the next
time I make these.

I didn't follow this thread, but if no one mentioned it yet, you might try
using one of the low gluten AP flours popular in the south, such as White
Lily.

Seems like you got the recipe figure out. Just wanted to add my two
cents.

Baking temp has a lot to do with browning and fast rise. Raising the
temp to 400 is a good idea for home bakers making muffins.

I suspect he is using a professional oven that is MUCH hotter than
what we use at home. 350 in a professional convection oven is
probably close to 400 for home appliances.

Also to note, different flour brands will definitely change the final
product. I only bake with King Arthur, unbleached white flour. I
love it!

Julie
http://www.bakingbits.com