Betty Crocker, I’ve got a beef with you.
You are supposed to be the queen of baking. Your infamous red and white cookbook is hailed by many to be the end all and be all of cookbooks. A veritable tome of cooking and baking wonder that can do no wrong.
Well Ms. Crocker, you’ve made me look like a fool. Twice.
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee – I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee…that says, fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again.”
Except those Tennesseeans(ites?) are wrong. I’m living proof. I got fooled again.
Last weekend I found myself staring at a disagree if overripe bananas at the store and I remembered that I used to buy the hell out of those things whenever I came across them.
Back then I was using bananas and applesauce a lot in my baking but I’ve since seen the light and come to realize that baking without fat is like living without wine. Which is to say – not worth it. So, I haven’t been buying bananas, because on their own, I hate them.
However, they somehow ended up in my cart and that afternoon I decided to make some muffins. Again this was weird because I never make muffins. I guess I just figured, hey, new food, new baked good. Seems logical, right?
Problem is, that since I don’t bake muffins often, I’ve got my cookie ingredient ratios down but not so much with muffins. Naturally, I reached for my trusty Betty.
But Betty isn’t into gluten and dairy free baking, so I did have to make a few substitutions. But these are subs that I use regularly without any troubles in other recipes. And by other recipes, I mean cookies. Because, well, reference the title of this blog, and you’ll figure that out.
Oat flour for white. Margarine or coconut oil for butter. Erythritol for sugar. Nothing crazy.
The muffins looked great when I peeked through the oven window. I pulled them out and turned to get a toothpick and when I looked at them seconds later they had all fallen flat.
What gives?!?
I’ve got a few ideas. Ideas that I straight up stole from other people that I consulted about this problem. People with far more baking skills and knowledge than I have.
The weird thing about the recipe was that it called for 2 tap of baking powder and no baking soda. That seemed crazy to me but again who am I to argue with her majesty of baking?
I thought maybe my baking powder was old since it was the last of the container and I really couldn’t tell you the last time I bought it. So, I tried baking them a second time using brand new baking powder! Same results.
Turns out that baking powder doesn’t work well with heavy ingredients. I suppose bananas, eggs, and oat flour are all rather heavy.
Ahhh….science.
The other thing is that I ran out of oat flour in the first batch, so I had to substitute with about 1/3 cup peanut flour (also rather heavy). Since I am a controlled experiment nazi, even when baking, I couldn’t change the baking powder AND the peanut flour in the second batch.
So, now that I know that it wasn’t the baking powder, I have to get to make these one.more.time. Hopefully, they will rise and stay risen with just oat flour.
They won’t be peanut butter banana muffins anymore though. And that’s really what I was after.
Eating plain old banana muffins is a small price to pay for science. A price that this scientist is willing to pay.
Especially since I have four jars of freshly handmade peanut butter in the fridge. Peanut butter that is easy to smear on banana muffins.
The thing is that the muffins taste really good, but they just look….flat and boring.
Was it a fail or not? Is taste more important or are looks?
Anyone have any suggestions for falling muffins?
Yes, taste trumps appearance!!! I just made some healthy pumpkin bread this week, and while it didn’t look as nice because it was a bit more dense, it still tasted good!
I prefer Tennessea monkey. I’m glad that your muffins taste good- to me that is the most important thing. My thought and it is not based on any sort of anything except past experiences that were uncontrolled and extremely biased experiments, but I think baking soda would help. I know that one makes em go up and one makes em spread…I thought powder was fluff up but maybe it is soda?..
I need to see the recipe written out exactly what you used and what you did and then I can tell you where I think it went wrong but….using exclusively baking powder in muffins is common, however, I hate baking powder. I always use baking soda and it’s so ironic/same wavelength you had this happen b/c I just prewrote a post yesterday where I talked about this whole conundrum. Baking powder can make things rise very fast, very puffy, and then if the stars dont align, they can deflate. In this sense, I suspect the flours were just wayyyy too heavy and you could have used 4 tsp with the same result, and you’d be eating chemical bitter soup by then to boot. I think that denser muffins when using oat/peanut flour is the norm. When I was a vegan/gf baker ALL my muffins looked just like yours
Use 1 tap baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda.
It’s Tennesseans.
I make some vegan gf banana muffins and they’re delish! Of course they look exactly like yours…. except possibly flatter:) I’m not much for aesthetics in my food anyhow, lol
Dare I say, the only true failure in baking is the failure to engage in it…also, you’re a scientist so you do it right by virtue of scientist status
What’s wrong with flat and boring as long as it tastes great?
#indefenseofmychest