Muffin Tops?

From the bounty of the strawberries I picked last week, I have done some baking. First, just a good old standard strawberry rhubarb crisp. But last night I ventured to strawberry muffins. The muffin recipe in my old McCall's cookbook (which is from the 60s, and includes lots of odd recipes for the average housewife of that era and contains some that use pre-packaged ingredients that don't even exist any more) isn't great, so I had to venture out.

The internet has so many cooking websites with so many recipe collections that there had to be one out there that was good. I read about 20 recipes before I settled on one. And that in itself might have been the mistake. After reading so many recipes and thinking about using as local and as ethical ingredients as possible, I made a few adjustments to the recipe I settled on. And, well, those of you who bake know that baking is as much a science as it is an art, and chemical processes give only so much.

I ended up with some very tasty muffins, most of which, if they rose, fell. The recipe clearly needs some tweaking. And thankfully I still have several pounds of strawberries with which to experiment.

But I think it is important to note that I do not think using local ingredients as much as possible here had anything to do with the "failure" of this recipe. The local flour is still flour, the local, free range eggs are still eggs, for example. It's a matter of getting proportions and heat and timing right. If it isn't, then I will have to find a new recipe altogether that works well with the ingredients I am willing to use. I'd rather find a new recipe than compromise the ethics.

And even if I end up with kind of ugly muffins, I know that they are good where it counts--the ethics and the taste!

I'll post the better of the two recipes later and let everyone know if further adjustments are needed.