Talk:Muffin

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Just edited out a gratuitous Achewood reference. Yeah, yeah, funny ha ha, it's a great comic. I read it myself. But transposing Philippe's "Friday Facts" into an actual information source is lame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.11.27.107 (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Please, don't mix US units (cups) with metric ones (g) in the same recipe. Always use a consistent unit set. Bearing in mind that many of the readers here will be non-American, I suggest sticking to metric units as they are standard across the world. I'm not sure of the equivalences between cups of sugar or flour , so I'll leave that to someone with more expertise.

Done, but I wasn't sure how to express half a cup of chocolate chips in grams, so I made it millilitres instead. --Valmi ✒ 04:25, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Don't Move

I'll fix this article. Don't move it. Just move the recipe. --Mothperson 01:28, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help

I mean, please move the recipe. I don't know what to do with it. --Mothperson 22:42, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Aar muffin"?

I just did a search on Google, and I didn't get any results explaining to me what an "aar muffin" is. Is this just some kind of typo? --Jitterro 03:25, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'American muffin'

I'm not entirely sure that Britons refer to the subject of this article as 'American muffins'. No one I've ever met has (although admittedly conversations about muffins are relatively scarce). I would call the cake and the bread product 'muffins'. Which is meant is always clear from context. Perhaps in the US if you ask someone if they would like a muffin for breakfast they might not assume you mean the bread kind. I've certainly eaten doughnuts in America before that have claimed to be 'ideal for breakfasts'. mat_x 15:19, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I am British and I have never said the words 'American' and 'Muffin' next to each other. 'American Muffin' is not a phrase anyone has ever said in the history of language so I don't know where this has come from. Muffins are much more popular than 'English Muffins' in the UK so if you ask for a muffin you will always get the cake kind (the one about which this article is written). I am editting the article to remove any such suggestion that these cakes are called 'American Muffins' in the UK. Abc30 22:08, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I would say that if you ask for a muffin when it is likely you are asking for an American-style muffin, that is what you will get. If you ask for a muffin in my house, at tea-time on a Sunday, you will likely get a breadier product. I have honestly eaten many more bready muffins than cakey muffins in my time. If it is not clear from context, I have often heard, and used, 'American-style muffin' or 'American muffin', as opposed to 'bready muffin'. So you are wrong. Skittle 11:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict muffins!

[edit] Muffin size

Somebody should probably change this sentence: Today it is not unusual to find a muffin along the lines of "coconut-almond-cherry-chocolate" the size of a small baby's head. I find it kind of strange to be comparing a food item to a baby's head. Redtitan 06:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is a cupcake a muffin?

Clearly these little cakes are delicious, but do they have enough in common with the muffin to be considered one? If this arguement can be made, then could one state that a cake is also a loaf of bread? A serious debate has been raised on this topic and I was hoping to get a third party evaluation. Any scientific proof that would help my case would be appreciated! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marvel comic (talk • contribs) 23:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

You are unlikely to find "scientific proof" for what is, after all, a matter of language usage and not science. To answer your question directly: I know that bakers and TV personality Alton Brown distinguish between muffins and cupcakes on the basis of how the batter is prepared. (Brown goes so far as to identify a distinct "muffin method" in his baking how-to book I'm Just Here for More Food.) There is some controversy over whether the use of paper pan-liners is acceptable for muffins; Brown says not, but most commercial bakeries use them.

[edit] Clarify tag

Article needs clarification and probably section restructuring - at the moment the article mixes up English muffins and US muffins in a confusing way and has a rambling prose style Bwithh Join Up! See the World! 22:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Restructured

In response to Bwithh's comment about the article needing restructuring I've grouped the different types of muffins together under one heading. I felt that there wasn't enough information in each of them to be seperate titles. Free Thinker 17:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cadburys

The article states that Cadburys is an American company, it's British!!! 131.227.231.73 00:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Reference to popular culture

Let us make a list of references to muffins in popular culture 1. Casino - Robert de Niro: each muffin has to have the same amount of blueberries 2. your turn

[edit] These are what I think are called "cup cakes" in British English.

I'm not much of a cook, but that's what I think the things in the photos are normally called in England. Of course with all the American brands being imported into the UK, things are being sold in supermarkets as and becoming known in their American usage. And Scottish people probably have different names for them also, which might I imagine be more similar to American-English usage. 80.2.202.130 21:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The things that you apparently call cup cakes are also called cup cakes in American English; I call them fairy cakes and have never met an English person who calls them cup cakes. American-style muffins are slightly different, having a slightly different composition. All of this can be found in the article, or could be last time I looked :) Skittle 15:27, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I would tend never to call them fairy-cakes, but instead use cup-cakes (I'm from Kent, FWIW), although I do assume both are the same. These muffins tend to be much larger than what I would call cup-cakes, though. I agree with you on the subject of calling these things American-style Muffins, although I'm sad to say that just calling them "muffins" is becoming more prevalent. You just have to tell from context now. I would seriously argue for renaming this page, though. I think it's bad that 'Muffins' comes straight here and not to the disambiguation page. --Neil (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 11:05, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

In Australia, cupcakes are experiencing a surge in popularity, even being used for some of the trendiest and most expensive wedding cakes. But they're significantly different to what we call muffins, which tend to be larger, and are of a particular consistency and without icing. Muffins are sold in bread shops and bakeries, alongside danish pastry and the like; Cupcakes are sold in cake shops.

And of course, we also have English muffins, sold under various names, mainly in supermarkets and grocers. Andrewa (talk) 16:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Must we make a reference to Whole Foods?

At the Paper Muffin cups section it clearly states "Organic variations of the muffin cup are sold at Whole Foods." Must we make reference to Whole Foods? I'm sur somewhere out there they sell organic muffin cups in a store other than Whole Foods, right?

[edit] English muffins removal

There is already an article on English muffins. As English muffins are not a subset of the muffin, they should not be included in "Types of muffin" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.38.23 (talk) 20:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No move. Duja► 07:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I would like to suggest moving this page to Muffin (American) because I think this is unfairly U.S.-centric; people in Britain usually use the term 'muffin' whether they are talking about American-style or English muffins, and the context makes it clear which one they are talking about (85 times out of 88 in the British National Corpus - see below), without the use of any clarifying adjective such as in the terms 'English muffin' or 'American-style' muffin. Unless of course the context for some reason is not clear, in which case they will use these longer terms. Other people have already written this. But if 'English' muffins are part of the cuisine and therefore the culture of Britain, and people in Britain usually refer to them as just 'muffins', and 'American-style' muffins are part of American culture, and people in America refer to them as just muffins, then why should Wikipedia give precedence to 'American-style' muffins by putting this article under the title 'muffin', and not the 'English' variety?

I think there should be an article under the title 'muffin' which is about both kinds of muffins, and the article should be moved to 'Muffin (American)', in the same way that 'football' is about all kinds of football and not just American Football, Soccer etc. I think this case is similar enough to be used as a precedent. Perhaps we could vote on it?

88 occurrences of 'muffin(s)' in the British National Corpus (~111 million words)
source British National Corpus (sketchengine.co.uk)

36 occurrences of adjective/noun + muffin(s)
CQL query: [tag="N.+|AJ0"] "muffins?"

  • chocolate muffins 2
  • banana muffins 2
  • yodelling muffin 1
  • wholemeal muffins 1
  • vanilla muffins 1
  • toasted muffins 1
  • spice muffins 1
  • scones muffins 1
  • prize muffin 1
  • player Muffin 1
  • party-coloured muffins 1
  • low-flying muffins 1
  • love muffins 1
  • hot muffins 1
  • home-made muffins 1
  • god Muffin 1
  • dog Muffin 1
  • different muffins 1
  • chair Muffin 1
  • buttered muffins 1
  • breakfast muffin 1
  • blueberry muffin 1
  • blue-iced muffin 1
  • Sunday muffin 1
  • Mule Muffin 1
  • Muesli muffins 1
  • London Muffin 1
  • Hot Muffin 1
  • English muffins 1
  • English Muffins 1
  • Christmas muffins 1
  • Blueberry muffins 1
  • Bhangra Muffin 1
  • American-style muffins 1

source: British National Corpus (sketchengine.co.uk)
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User:Ca woodcock 22:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Our way of dealing with Anglo-American differences is simple: leave them alone. In this case, there is an obvious way to disambiguate between the English and American senses: discuss the English sense under English muffin. I further suspect that the British corpus has been contaminated with American usage; certainly blueberry muffins are an every-day American food. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I assumes that by leave them alone you mean we mustn't make a big deal out of it. Well I agree, but this is the title of the page, not just a matter of the spelling of one word. Anyway, one of the ways we deal with it is by considering any strong national ties to a topic: An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation. But in Britain we call muffins muffins, not English muffins. User:Ca woodcock 11:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
No, I mean don't move them once established. This can be overturned for a really good reason, as the linked guideline says; but there isn't one here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Although crude and not entirely accurate, the Google test says American muffins are more common than English muffins, even if it's solely by force of population (ie, the US has more people than the UK). See [1] (which excludes the term "English muffin", as well as non-food uses of the word muffin), "english muffin" "food", and "english muffin". They result in 2.2 million, 320000, and 557000 hits, respectively. This suggests that the word "muffin" is more commonly used to refer to American muffins. A good compromise for this page, though, would be to talk about muffins in general (and the confusion around the word) with sections for both American and English muffins. Then allow English muffin to remain separate. "Muffin (American)" is just really awkward-sounding. Axem Titanium 22:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Page protection

This page seems to attract a lot of vandalism, most of it by anons... should it be semi-protected, perhaps? I can argue it both ways... they'll probably just go elsewhere, and at least here we have a few people watching and ready to revert. Andrewa (talk) 12:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted

I reverted these edits because they seem to make little sense. For example, cup-shaped bread is inaccurate; Muffins are not bread. The two redlinks seemed both better as redlinks; One had been eliminated, the other piped to an article on a similar but significantly different topic.

But it's the change in description that mainly bothered me. The intro needs a rewrite, but its main problem is that it's not very good English. The discarded content was both informative and accurate; The replacement was neither. Andrewa (talk) 16:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Defnition of a stupid person

a muffin is a dliciousful fooshnit that has turned into a Silver —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.54.206.206 (talk) 23:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] People muffin?

I'm pretty sure that that this is not real, but I want to have permission to blank the whole thing.--Sunsetsunrise (talk) 01:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this doesn't seem to belong here at all, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.195.125.4 (talk) 02:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Date "Muffin" Makes it into English

The date the word "Muffin" first appears in written English is incorrect--even according to the citation on the page. The correct date is not the 11th century, but 1703 (see the OED). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.231.32.128 (talk) 17:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)