History of Baking Muffins

Muffins are a kind of bread that are baked in little portions. They look like cupcakes and small cakes in the shape, but there are in general lack of frosting and are not sweet as the cupcakes.
The name muffin itself comes either from "muffe" or "moufflet". Muffe is a kind of cake from Germany and moufflet is a French word which means a soft bread.
You can usually hold a muffin with one hand and there are often served when it is breakfast time, but they can also be served with a couple of tea with friends or at other meals. Muffins are often served in a paper baking cup or a muffin tin. They can either be served cold or warm and with or without jam and butter.
There are many flavors and variations of muffins and the bottom line is that there is always a special ingredient that defines the muffin. The special ingredient can be a fruit such as blueberry for example or maybe a vegetable like pumpkin. Other special ingredients can be banana, orange, strawberry, raspberry, almond, cinnamon, lemon, chocolate chips and peach.

There are two main types of muffins, English and American style. They both have it's own way of baking process, history and flavor.
The English muffin takes form as a flat yeast dough that is raised with nooks and crannies and are cooked on a hot griddle. The early form of baking muffins can be traced back to the 10th century were dough were placed in muffin rings on the stove or on the bottom of a skillet.

What differ the American style muffins from the English muffins are batter rather than dough, baking powder instead of yeast. Originally the American style muffins used potash as the leavening agent until around 1857 when the baking powder appear on the market. It was also during the mid 18th century the first muffin recipe came in print and with that the popularity of baking muffins also increased so much that muffin men walked on the streets of England just to try to sell their new baked muffins.

In the United States, three of the states have adopted a muffin as their official state muffin. And the follow states are Minnesota, Massachusetts and New York. Minnesota have blueberry muffins as their official muffin, Massachusetts have corn muffin adopted 1986 and one year later New York adopted the apple muffin as their official state muffin.