John Myers
The paper wrapper is typical for muffins and makes the small baked goods easy to handle: Nutella muffins and other variants can be served perfectly as party finger food or taken to a picnic. But even without paper molds, muffins can be made in the shaped tray. Simply grease the corresponding indentations well and sprinkle with crumbled cornflakes, chopped nuts, coconut flakes or breadcrumbs if the dough is very sticky. Baking normal or mini muffins without a mold can be done with a simple trick. If you put two or three paper cups together, the dough usually has enough hold. It can also help to line the muffins closely together on the baking sheet – they then support each other.
If nothing of the sort is available and you want to bake muffins without a mold or paper wrapper, ovenproof glasses or cups can serve as a shaper – good greasing and sprinkling ensure that the finished muffins can be removed after baking. Alternatively, you can also use a large cake tin and bake a bundt cake with the muffin batter, for example. The baking time is then longer than specified in the recipe – for example for our pumpkin muffins.
Bake muffins for special occasions without a special shape
Heart-shaped pastries are a great idea for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. It is relatively easy to bake heart-shaped muffins without a mold – after all, there is not always room for another baking utensil. Just take regular muffin paper liners and line the tin with them. Fill the wells about two-thirds full with batter. Now form one large and two small balls from aluminum foil for each muffin and insert them between the paper form and the sheet metal wall at the top and bottom so that hearts form. You can also use marbles or similar heat-resistant materials. It also works with large nut kernels. Our quark muffins with raspberries are a great surprise for your loved ones. Incidentally, other muffins without a special shape can also be prepared in this way – such as stars for Christmas. Instead of using it to model the paper cases in the tin, you can use the aluminum foil to make a shape yourself. Shape the shape you want with thick paper and wrap it several times with aluminum foil – muffins without a shape come out of the oven in the form of hearts and the like.
