Three Different Recipes for Tiny Muffin Molds and How Well They Work
Placing things in muffin tins to make a bite-sized dish is a popular kitchen trick , but some recipes work better than others. Lucky Peach tasted three: spaghetti and a meatball muffin, a bowl of spinach and an apple pie, all to see which came up with the idea. Here’s what they found.
Marian Bull explains why people are attracted to cupcake tins:
On Pinterest, if you have a cupcake mold, anything is possible. Baked oatmeal or frittata? Divide them into muffin tins and eat miniature breakfasts throughout the week! Solid tacos? Make them tiny! How are the cakes? Why not stuff them with marshmallow fluff and bake them in muffin tins! I could go on, but I won’t, because that’s what Pinterest is literally about.
Muffin coloring is both an aesthetic and a pragmatic movement: we love the tiny cute things, of course, but we also love reasonable portion sizes and golden crusts (thanks Maillard reaction!)
Bottom line: the spaghetti and meatball pie didn’t work out. The other two, however, worked pretty well – well enough that it pays to adapt your recipe to the muffin mold if you plan on feeding the crowd, want some delicious snacks at a friends party, or just love the idea of portion control. The pie makes the most sense as each recipe uses a pre-cooked pie crust for the topping, but spinach muffins look especially good and are worth trying for your next meeting or game day snack. Marian embellishes:
I opened the oven for those little fizzy Super Bowl pancake chunks and gasped, the cartoon character’s eyes were huge, staring at every bite of golden edge and melted milk fat. I was angry that I simply hadn’t ordered a large amount of marijuana and hadn’t invited my three closest friends.
… These bites remind you of the omnipotent power of cream cheese: how it can make things both fluffy and creamy at the same time, how God definitely made them for sauces (sorry bagels!). The “bite” idea works here, especially if you are the type of person with friends who cares about double dipping – everyone gets their portion or four. And it creates the pleasant illusion of portion control, which is one of the main reasons why you should pull out a cupcake pan at all.
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Viral recipes: muffin molds | Happy peach