Matthew Woolen is a master pastry chef and has worked in a variety of Seattle restaurants, including gastropub Old Sage, Zhu Dang, and a gluten-free restaurant called Capitol Cider.

Matthew Woolen

We’ve been hard at work producing a series of recipes for the ultimate versions of standard muffin flavors: <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-blueberry-muffins">blueberry</a>, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/lemon-poppy-seed-muffins">lemon-poppy seed</a>, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-corn-muffins">corn</a>, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/double-chocolate-muffins">double-chocolate</a>, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-banana-nut-muffin">banana-nut</a>. Each one treats muffins like the little cakes they are, and we spared no effort in making those cakes as delicious as they can be. However, we realize that most people just want to throw muffins together as quickly as possible. Maybe for special occasions, like hosting a bonkers brunch, you’d be happy to whip up a meringue and fold it into muffin batter or pull out your blender just to grind cornmeal so fine it performs more like cake flour. But if you want to wake up on a lazy Saturday and put together a sweet breakfast treat in the time it takes to drink a couple cups of coffee? You probably don’t want to get out the stand mixer—you want to use this recipe.If you make this recipe without any mix-ins, you’ll have four perfect jumbo muffins: sweet, with a cake-like crumb, but with none of a cake’s more involved technique. We’ve streamlined the method for tempering the liquid phase of the batter by incorporating hot melted butter, which means you can stir it into the dry ingredients and produce a nice emulsion. (You also have the option of browning the butter first, for the added flavor boost brown butter brings to any sweet pastry). But what this recipe really offers is a base batter that can accommodate all kinds of different flavor variations. We put it to the test and developed 11 flavor combinations to illustrate how you can modify the recipe. You can use these variations as written, of course, but you can also use them as a guide to come up with muffins of your own.

The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Muffin