Spot the difference, mark 2

     I've made another batch of the oatmeal and chocolate chip muffins I tried recently, but this time, to make them into a muffin version of these excellent biscuits, I added peanut butter (sorry, Lindsay): one heaped and one level tablespoon of the crunchy stuff, though smooth would be fine too. This is enhancement, people! They are very, very good.

 

   When I made the first lot, the issue of  'the taxonomy of baked goods' arose in the comments, so just to throw in my two penn'orth, the muffins we always used to eat in Britain - and we still do, but confusingly we have this sort now as well - were yeasted, and were usually toasted and spread with butter, honey, etc. My mother has a muffin dish (much like these) which would keep the contents warm at table by virtue of the hot water compartment beneath.

   The type pictured here are often called American muffins, but perhaps our US readers don't claim them as their own? The mixture contains sunflower oil instead of butter, and the resulting taste and texture differ from the sponge cake persona of fairy cakes/cupcakes.

    Buns are different again, also yeasted, and of various shapes and sizes, fruited, spiced or plain, - remember the iced ones we did for The Solitude of Thomas Cave?

   Crumpets we had last week, but I didn't know they have been made here since as long ago as Anglo-Saxon times (see Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking by Kate Colquhoun) - did our ancestors buy bronze crumpet rings at John Lewis? They enjoyed honey dumplings as well, all this baking recorded in 'vocabularies' such as the one written by Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, in colloquy form to teach monastic novices to read Latin.

   Gosh! What started as a simple bit of muffin-making has taken us back a long way.

Comments

[Rebecca]

Oooh, Karen what an excellent marriage of recipes. And honey dumplings? My gosh I like the sound of those, most intriguing.

[Fran]

In my childhood these would have been called cupcakes, a name which still seems to be around but fast being overtaken by "muffins". Your snippet from Taste has whetted my appetite to read this book whcih I have spotted in your side bar for a while.

[Ruth M.]

I'm happy to claim muffins as American. We distinguish them from cupcakes, though both are same shape/size/pans etc. Muffins are quick breads (baking soda/powder)and can be sweetish but also savory (blueberries, nuts,pumpkin, bran), usually breakfast fare. Cupcakes are definitely cake, much finer grain, often frosted, served as dessert.

[Margaret Powling]

We simply called little cakes like this in cake cases "buns". Muffins and Cup Cakes are now almost synonymous, but Cup Cakes always tend to have girly pink or pale green icing on them and are decorated. Indeed, the term Cup Cake (along with Vintage) has been banned from our vocab as it is just a fashion fad/buzz word (that's another term that has been banned in our house!)

[Marg]

Ruth M has it right. Muffins and cupcakes are not the same thing although I've had some nasty store-bought things which claimed to be muffins but tasted more like stale cake. Cupcakes are only "trendy" because they've made repeated appearances on Sex in the City. I just read an interesting tidbit about the little paper cupcake liners -- they were first manufactured by the James River Corporation just after WWI. Anywho, whatcha got there we would definitely call muffins and they're making me VERY hungry.

Hot tip to anyone making Guinness cupcakes for the 17th -- you have to use the cupcake liners or you'll be making trifle instead....

[Dark Puss]

I hope you all saw the rather lovely savoury muffin recipes in Saturday's 5 June Guardian by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. If you didn't you can read the recipes here. I hope to try one of these in the next week or so and I'll report back if I do.