A muffin is an American English

American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

 name for a type of quick bread

Quick bread

Quick bread is an American term used to denote a type of bread which is leavened with leavening agents other than yeast. Quick breads includes many cakes, brownies and cookies, as well as banana bread, beer bread, cornbread, biscuits, muffins, pancakes, scones, and soda bread.-History::"Quick...

 that is baked in small portions. Many forms are somewhat like small cake

Cake

Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet and enriched baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape...

s or cupcake

Cupcake

A cupcake is a small cake designed to serve one person, frequently baked in a small, thin paper or aluminum cup...

s in shape, although they usually are not as sweet as cupcakes and generally lack frosting. Savory varieties, such as cornbread

Cornbread

Cornbread is a generic name for any number of quick breads containing cornmeal and leavened by baking powder.-History:Native Americans were using ground corn for food thousands of years before European explorers arrived in the New World...

 muffins, also exist. They generally fit in the palm of an adult hand, and are intended to be consumed by an individual in a single sitting.

Outside the United States of America, muffin can also refer to a disk-shaped muffin, usually called an English muffin

English muffin

A muffin or English muffin is a small, round, flat type of yeast-leavened bread almost always dusted with cornmeal, which is commonly served split horizontally, toasted, and buttered. Muffins are eaten either as a snack alone or as part of a meal.- History :An old English nursery rhyme, "The...

 outside of the United Kingdom. As American-style muffins are also sold in Commonwealth countries, the term muffin can refer to either product, with the context usually making clear which is meant.

There are many varieties and flavors of muffins made with a specific ingredient such as blueberries, chocolate chip

Chocolate chip

Chocolate chips are small chunks of chocolate. They are often sold in a round, flat-bottomed teardrop shape. They are available in numerous sizes, from large to miniature, but are usually around 1 cm in diameter.-Origin:...

s, cucumber

Cucumber

The cucumber is a widely cultivated plant in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae, which includes squash, and in the same genus as the muskmelon. The plant is a creeping vine which bears cylindrical edible fruit when ripe. There are three main varieties of cucumber: "slicing", "pickling", and...

s, raspberry

Raspberry

The raspberry or hindberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus Rubus, most of which are in the subgenus Idaeobatus; the name also applies to these plants themselves...

, cinnamon

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both sweet and savoury foods...

, pumpkin

Pumpkin

A pumpkin is a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita and the family Cucurbitaceae . It commonly refers to cultivars of any one of the species Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita mixta, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata, and is native to North America...

, date, nut

Nut (fruit)

A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...

, lemon

Lemon

The lemon is both a small evergreen tree native to Asia, and the tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit. The fruit is used for culinary and non-culinary purposes throughout the world – primarily for its juice, though the pulp and rind are also used, mainly in cooking and baking...

, banana

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

, orange

Orange (fruit)

An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....

, peach

Peach

The peach tree is a deciduous tree growing to tall and 6 in. in diameter, belonging to the subfamily Prunoideae of the family Rosaceae. It bears an edible juicy fruit called a peach...

, strawberry

Strawberry

Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. Although it is commonly thought that strawberries get their name from straw being used as a mulch in cultivating the plants, the etymology of the word is uncertain. There...

, boysenberry

Boysenberry

A boysenberry is a cross between a European Raspberry , a Common Blackberry , and a Loganberry ....

, almond

Almond

The almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...

, and carrot

Carrot

The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh...

, baked into the muffin. Muffins are often eaten for breakfast; alternatively, they may be served for tea

Tea (meal)

Tea can refer to any of several different meals or mealtimes, depending on a country's customs and its history of drinking tea. However, in those countries where the term's use is common, the influences are generally those of the former British Empire...

 or at other meals.

History

Recipes for muffins, in their yeast-free "American" form, are common in 19th century American cookbooks. Recipes for yeast-based muffins, which were sometimes called "common muffins" or "wheat muffins" in 19th century American cookbooks, can be found in much older cookbook

Cookbook

A cookbook is a kitchen reference that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions...

s.

A somewhat odd combination of circumstances in the 1970s and 1980s led to significant changes in what had been a rather simple, if not prosaic, food. The decline in home-baking, the health food

Health food

The term health food is generally used to describe foods that are considered to be beneficial to health, beyond a normal healthy diet required for human nutrition. However, the term is not precisely defined by national regulatory agencies such as the U.S...

 movement, the rise of the specialty food shop, and the gourmet coffee trend all contributed to the creation of a new standard of muffin.

Preservative

Preservative

A preservative is a naturally occurring or synthetically produced substance that is added to products such as foods, pharmaceuticals, paints, biological samples, wood, etc. to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or by undesirable chemical changes....

s in muffin mixes led to the expectation that muffins did not have to go stale within hours of baking, but the resulting muffins were not a taste improvement over homemade. On the other hand, the baked muffin, even if from a mix, seemed almost healthy compared to the fat-laden alternatives of doughnuts and Danish pastry

Danish pastry

Danish pastry is a sweet pastry which has become a specialty of Denmark and neighbouring Scandinavian countries and is popular throughout the industrialized world, although the form it takes can differ significantly from country to country...

. "Healthy" muffin recipes using whole grain

Whole grain

Whole grains are cereal grains that contain cereal germ, endosperm, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm. Whole grains can generally be sprouted while refined grains generally will not sprout. Whole-meal products are made by grinding whole grains in order to make...

s and such "natural" things as yogurt and various vegetable

Vegetable

The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....

s evolved rapidly. But for "healthy" muffins to have any shelf-life without artificial preservatives, the sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

 and fat content needed to be increased, to the point where the "muffins" are almost indistinguishable from cupcake

Cupcake

A cupcake is a small cake designed to serve one person, frequently baked in a small, thin paper or aluminum cup...

s. The rising market for gourmet snacks to accompany gourmet coffees resulted in fancier concoctions in greater bulk than the original, modestly sized corn muffin.

The marketing trend toward larger portion sizes also resulted in new muffin pan types for home-baking, not only for increased size. Since the area ratio of muffin top to muffin bottom changed considerably when the traditional small round exploded into a giant mushroom, consumers became more aware of the difference between the soft texture of tops, allowed to rise unfettered, and rougher, tougher bottoms restricted by the pans. There was a brief foray into pans that could produce "all-top" muffins, i.e., extremely shallow, large-diameter cups. The TV sitcom Seinfeld

Seinfeld

Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...

made reference to this in the "The Muffin Tops" episode in which the character Elaine Benes

Elaine Benes

Elaine Marie Benes is a fictional character on the American television sitcom Seinfeld , played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Elaine's best friend is her ex-boyfriend Jerry Seinfeld; she is also good friends with George Costanza and Cosmo Kramer...

 co-owns a bakery named "Top o' the Muffin to You!" that sold only the muffin tops. Along with the increasing size of muffins is a contrary trend of extremely small muffins. It is now very common to see muffin pans or premade muffins that are only one or two inches in diameter.

English muffin

The English muffin

English muffin

A muffin or English muffin is a small, round, flat type of yeast-leavened bread almost always dusted with cornmeal, which is commonly served split horizontally, toasted, and buttered. Muffins are eaten either as a snack alone or as part of a meal.- History :An old English nursery rhyme, "The...

, which predates the American muffin, is a type of light bread leavened with yeast. It is usually baked in a flat-sided disc-shaped tin, typically about 8 cm in diameter

Diameter

In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. The diameters are the longest chords of the circle...

. Muffins are usually split in two, toast

Toast

Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...

ed and served with butter

Butter

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...

. Traditionally muffins were toasted in front of an open fire or stove, using a toasting fork. Muffins can also be eaten cold with a hot drink at coffee shops and diners, or split and filled similar to a sandwich (most famously the McDonald's

McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...

 chain's McMuffin

McMuffin

The McMuffin is a family of breakfast sandwiches in various sizes and configurations, sold by the fast-food restaurant chain McDonald's. The Egg McMuffin is the signature breakfast sandwich; it was invented by the late McDonald's franchisee Herb Peterson in the late 1960s and was introduced...

).

In her Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer is a 19th century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form...

, Fannie Farmer

Fannie Farmer

Fannie Merritt Farmer was an American culinary expert whose Boston Cooking-School Cook Book became a widely used culinary text.-Biography:...

 gave recipes for both types of muffins, adding instructions for a version that is nearly identical to today's "English muffin". Here the raised-muffin mixture was cooked in muffin rings on a griddle

Griddle

A griddle is a cooking device consisting of a broad flat surface that can be heated using a variety of means, and is used in both residential and commercial applications for a variety of cooking operations. Most commonly, the griddle consists of a flat metal plate, but in the non-industrialized...

 and flipped to brown both sides, producing a grilled muffin. Farmer indicated this was a useful method when baking in an oven was not practical.

Corn muffin

Muffins made from cornmeal

Cornmeal

Cornmeal is flour ground from dried maize or American corn. It is a common staple food, and is ground to fine, medium, and coarse consistencies. In the United States, the finely ground cornmeal is also referred to as cornflour. However, the word cornflour denotes cornstarch in recipes from the...

 are popular in the United States. Though corn muffins can simply be muffin shaped cornbread

Cornbread

Cornbread is a generic name for any number of quick breads containing cornmeal and leavened by baking powder.-History:Native Americans were using ground corn for food thousands of years before European explorers arrived in the New World...

, corn muffins tend to be sweeter. Similar to the pan variety, corn muffins can be eaten with butter or as a side dish with stews or chili.

Muffin cups

Muffin cups are round sheets of paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

, foil, silicone

Silicone

Silicones are inert, synthetic compounds with a variety of forms and uses. Typically heat-resistant and rubber-like, they are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medical applications , cookware, and insulation....

, or metal, with scallop-pressed edges, giving the muffin a round cup shape. They are used in the baking of muffins to line the bottoms of muffin tins, to facilitate the easy removal of the finished muffin from the tin.

The advantage to cooks is easier removal and cleanup, more precise form, and moister muffins; however, using them will prevent a crust.

Nutrition

Nutrients in a blueberry muffin, 1/3 jumbo muffin or approximately 2 mini muffins (55 g):

Muffins as symbols

• The corn muffin is the official state muffin of Massachusetts
  Massachusetts
  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
  
  .
• The blueberry
  Blueberry
  Blueberries are flowering plants of the genus Vaccinium with dark-blue berries and are perennial...
  
   muffin is the official state muffin of Minnesota
  Minnesota
  Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
  
  .
• The apple muffin is the official state muffin of New York
  New York
  New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
  
  .

Muffin top

Muffin top

"Muffin-top" is a generally pejorative slang term used to describe the phenomenon of overhanging flesh when it spills over the waistline of pants or skirts in a manner that resembles the top of a muffin spilling over its paper casing.- Origin :...

is a perjorative term for flesh overhanging the waistband