Sweeten to taste
Posted on Sat, 28 Jun 2008
“You can please some of the people some of the time but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” This certainly applies to sugar in muffins! Give the same muffin to different people and the responses will range from “too sweet” to “not sweet enough” or “just right”.
This difference in experiencing sweetness is partly due to individual palates but it also depends on what the person is expecting from the taste experience. When we bite into cake we expect it to be sweet, but not so with scones or breads. Muffins, being relatively new on the British baking scene, are still a mystery to many people — how sweet should they be? Are they simply small cakes or do they have a category all their own? I would argue for the latter. I think, on the sweetness scale, muffins should fit somewhere between cakes and scones.
The beauty of
muffins is that you really can adapt them to suit your own taste as far as
sweetness is concerned. They can tolerate a wide range of sugar content — from
2-6 oz (60-170g) for a batch of 12, or even as low as 2 Tablespoons if
necessary for health reasons. Since muffins come in a wide variety of flavours,
often with additional ingredients such as raisins, fruit or nuts, I personally
don’t think it’s necessary to exceed 170g sugar even for people with a sweet
tooth. (That would be about 3 teaspoons sugar per muffin.) Our family generally
finds 100g sugar is plenty for a batch of 12 — and that’s about 2 level
teaspoons sugar per muffin. Using 85g, the sugar drops to 1½ teaspoons per
muffin.
While most people simply want a tasty home-baked treat, I know that some will be keen to produce the ultimate “healthy” muffin but I would want to discourage extremes. Sugar, fat and salt all contribute to the chemistry of successful baking. Although each can be reduced, none should be eliminated. As sugar and fat are decreased, the muffins become drier, with a less tender crumb and poorer keeping quality. That’s why I’ve tried to strike a happy balance between “delicious” and “nutritious”.
Needless to say, it was a struggle to specify sugar quantities for the recipes in Muffins. In response to feedback, I have shifted the sugar up and down slightly through the different editions. What needs to be emphasized though, is that you can do the same! At the beginning of the book I’ve given guidelines for making muffins, including brief tips about ingredients. Here is an extract from the note about sugar:
Sugar is used both for flavour and texture. Remember that the sugar content of muffins can be adjusted either up or down to suit individual tastes. I have indicated this in a few of the recipes but the same can be done for all. Fine white granulated sugar (such as caster sugar) and soft brown sugars work best as they are easily absorbed into the baked goods. You can substitute one for the other according to preference...
» In the diabetic diet it is necessary to restrict sugar intake. A very small amount of sugar in baking is considered acceptable when this is part of an overall healthy diet. The sugar in each of the recipes should be reduced to 2 Tablespoons (30 ml) or less, and sweet toppings, syrups and chocolate should be omitted. It is also important to increase fibre and decrease fat consumed in the diabetic diet. Hence the following recommendations: use a combination of wholemeal and white flour, use reduced fat milk, use vegetable oil rather than butter, and use slightly less oil than stated. Add a little extra liquid to compensate. As the lower sugar and fat content will have an effect on texture, always serve the muffins warm to make this less noticeable.
