Cake-y or Crumbly: How Do You Like Your Muffins?

We found ourselves in a fix this weekend.

We had exactly one pint of blueberries, purchased at the Saturday farmer's market and carried lovingly home. Everyone in our household was agreed: we would make blueberry muffins.

And that's when the arguing started. Some of us wanted a simple breakfast muffin--not too sweet and just a little crumbly. Others wanted cake. Or rather cake in the shape of muffins. (Guess which side of the camp we fall on!)

And what about you, dear readers? Which side of the Muffin Debate do you take?!

We're reminded of a quote we read a while back in a New York Times article on this very subject, "Spicy Little Cakes Disguised as Muffins." Journalist Melissa Clark quotes a pastry chef as saying:

''Muffins are just an excuse to eat cake for breakfast."

Ironically, after hearing this statement, Clark decides to embrace her own love of the muffin-cake and begins converting all her favorite cake recipes into muffin form.

The moral of the story is: No matter what kind of muffin you crave with your coffee, just enjoy it! Love it whole-heartedly! No judgment, we swear.

And, as always, there's a muffin for everyone. Here are a few:

Peach and Spice Tea Muffins
Coffee in a Muffin: Three Recipes
Mini Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Pear Ginger Raisin Muffins
Almond Muffins with Gooey Fig Center

What's your favorite kind of muffin?

(Image: Faith Hopler for the Kitchn)

Comments (7)

Can you post the muffin recipe you used? I have one pint of blueberries too and your muffins look delish.

I like both types of muffins :)

posted by melissa_loves_pug on July 14th 2008 at 5:53am
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I'm in the--if it has blueberries in it, I'll eat it--muffin group!

My go to recipe is more cake-like. They are Nick Malgieri's Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins. I love sprinkling some demerara sugar on top for a nice little crunch.

recipe can be found here: http://divaofdining.blogspot.com/2008/07/blast-from-past-jordan-marsh-blueberry.html

posted by bobcatsteph3 on July 14th 2008 at 6:43am
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The muffins pictures are the Mini Blueberry Lemon Muffins--the link is at the bottom of the post. I ended up making them full-sized (not mini) and they turned out great!

Have fun!

posted by EmmaC on July 14th 2008 at 6:52am
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I like it like cake - moist!

I also prefer my muffins to be savoury - is that blasphemy?

posted by buda on July 14th 2008 at 12:56pm
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I like both. And I also like savory muffins (esp. corn-cheddar-jalepeno combos and thyme-onion). I just like muffins.

BUT.

Commercial cake muffins are dreck. They're just 500 calories worth of textureless over-sweet kleh. So yes to cake muffins, but only homemade.

Or any other kind of muffin.

posted by cmcinnyc on July 14th 2008 at 4:54pm
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cmcinnyc -

I agree that commercially-produced muffins are awful. It's gotten to the point where they're basically oversized cupcakes without frosting.

posted by Joy R. on July 15th 2008 at 12:23am
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When they break apart and crumb all over the place it just makes me wanna toss it into a bowl of milk and eat it with a spoon.

So if I'm going to eat a muffin, I'd prefer it cake-y and moist!

posted by Xandara on July 20th 2008 at 10:47am
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