Gregg R. Gillespie

This is a recipe book with 201 muffin recipes, whereby "201 muffins" they mean, "207 recipes of which 125 are muffins and the rest of which are biscuits, popovers, quickbreads, and coffee cakes." A nice and compact book with a picture of each "muffin" ... nevermind that the pictures and the real muffins often look nothing alike (look, if the recipe calls for a cup of cocoa powder, in addition to whole wheat flour and dark brown sugar, there is no way the thing is going to turn out a golden brown. Just sayin'.).

Most of the muffins follow the basic formula of (combine wet ingredients), (combine dry ingredients), then combine two mixtures. Most of the recipes make 12 standard-sized muffins, even if the estimated yield is something else; if it's much smaller (~6) or much bigger (~24) then the actual yield is probably slightly less (~8 to 10) or more (~18) than a dozen, but not as extreme as suggested.

The book is kind of obsessed with melting butter before it goes anywhere, which is a fine idea until you actually try it, because melted butter + cold other liquids (eggs, milk, etc.) causes said other liquids to congeal. For most muffins this is OK, but for others, it means it is basically impossible to get the muffin to turn out correctly (c.f., Eggless Rainbow). In general the ingredients are fairly standard, but several muffins require new and interesting ingredients: oat bran, wheat germ, granola... not to mention the several bacon-based muffins.

I've been going through this book roughly alphabetically at the rate of about one recipe a week, so of course this review will be updated several more times... Note that many of the recipes call for nuts; I generally dislike biting into nuts and so I chop them up finely before putting them in the batter, "so you can't tell." In the spirit of reviewing the recipes, I actually follow them all pretty closely, even if it is clear that there are better ways to do it. I'll combine and experiment once I'm done with the book :-)

Muffins:

All Season A generic white muffin, the only interesting ingredient was plain yogurt, which actually was somewhat noticeable in the final product. Simple but tasty. The nice thing about having yogurt in the recipe, too, is that it's easy to get small quantities of yogurt, as opposed to many other potential ingredients.
Apple & Date Apparently dates are not a kind of nut, but the muffin was kind of dry and weird anyhow. Will not repeat.
Apple and Oat Bran I had no idea what the hell "oat bran" is, but apparently it's in the "organic foods" aisle. The muffin is pretty tasty; a little coarse (due to the oat bran, I'm guessing), but it's good. My brother says it needs more sugar. Whatever. I can't tell there's apple in it per se but it's better than last week's. They went bad after about four days anyhow.
Apple-Pecan Ooooh soo good. And they are really big too so they have the muffin-top thing going on. I just had two for dinner. Kind of sweet (they have lots of brown sugar in them) but also so so tasty. Great with coffee.
Applesauce-Walnut Smooth. Generic but fine.
Avocado Yes, avocado. Included almonds. Very very very green. (The picture in the book is decidedly brown.) I'm not a big avocado fan—I hate the taste when not in guacamole—so I wasn't sure what to expect (c.f.: I hate carrots but carrot cake is fine). I was by coworkers who tried them told this muffin was a crime against humanity and all that is good in the world. Included almonds. The muffin in the picture in the book is decidedly brown. (I managed one bite of one; it wasn't really done so I put them back in the oven for a few minutes and wasn't brave enough to try anymore.)
Bacon Yes, bacon. Surprisingly tasty, and, yes, they taste like bacon. The actual dough has a slight bacon-y hint to it (due to bacon drippings in the batter), but is otherwise bland and almost dry; then there are bacon crumbs in the muffin for that extra bacon-kick. Would be great as either a breakfast or a dinner muffin.
Banana and Chocolate Chip: DELICIOUS. Yellow, light, fluffy, not too sweet. I need another one RIGHT NOW.
Banana Crowns: Basically a very bananay muffin with a slice of banana in the center. (Was supposed to have a dollop of mango jam there as well but well I couldn't find mango jam.) Went bad well before the end of the week. Didn't cook the whole way.
Cornmeal with (Blue)Berries: So bland. My mother's fault for picking a recipe with very few interesting ingredients. But my 7 year old cousin ate like four.
Crab: OH MY GOD THEY TASTED LIKE BRANDY. 0.5c of brandy. The crap was canned and there wasn't enough of it. Couldn't really tell it was in the muffin. Not very tasty. Also WAY too much white pepper, which DOES NOT PLAY NICE WITH BRANDY.
Banana Praline: Sweet but oh-so-good. Yum yum.
Banana Poppy Seed: Almost like a biscuit it's so dense. Very filling. Difficult to eat an entire one.
Blackberry: More complicated to make than the typical muffin, but delicious fresh. Neither refregerated nor microwaved well due to the finickiness of blackberries.
Blueberry Banana: Included a touch of triple sec, which gave it a nice undertaste.
Blueberry Yogurt: Oat-bran based and thus rather coarse; the taste was great but the texture was a bit too complicated.
Blueberry Buttermilk: A good standard plain blueberry muffin.
Bran w/ Raisins Another yummy standard. A few people were somewhat turned away by the All Bran + flour combination, but I thought it was fine, if funny looking.
Brown Sugar Somewhat but not too sweet. Good.
Butternut Squash Plain, but tastes like butternut squash, which is good if you like it and bad if you don't.
Cajun Corn Calls for cornmeal, cayenne pepper, bell peppers, and onions. I couldn't bring myself to make it, mostly due to an aversion to bell peppers.
Carrot & Pineapple I screwed this one up slightly (didn't drain the canned pineapple!) and so mine are way moist, but still very good. A dark muffin (whole wheat flour + a generous dose of dark brown sugar) and a surprising combination that begs to have raisins added to it.
Cheddar Cheese and Pepper This muffin sounded and looks delicious, but unfortunately, the "pepper" is "white pepper," and the result is a nearly inedible spicy passive-aggressive temptation. Other people seem to really enjoy them, though.
Chive Dinner It has chives in it. No way this was going in my oven.
Chocolate Chip & Orange OK, but a bit dry. Nothing to write home about.
Chocolate Fudge No leavening agent, which is a bit strange. So they were dense, but very good; neither too chocolatey nor too sweet.
Chocolate Raspberry Crumbly and sweet. Good if you like raspberry; very chocolatey.
Chorizo-and-Corn Uhm, it has chorizo sausage, coriander, cumin, onions, paprika, various peppers, Tabasco sauce ... and I don't do spicy. None of these ingredients entered my kitchen.
Cinnamon-and-Raisin Classic. Uses shortening, which is unusual for this book, but they were oh-boy tasty.
Citrus Orange and lime peel only. Very light citrusy taste; not overwhelming.
Cocoa-Raisin-Walnut One of my favorite so far, but the walnuts are unnecessary. Mine were so dark that the raisins didn't stand out, and so it was like a little surprise every time I found one.
Cocoa Spice No, wait, maybe this is my favorite so far. This one also called for walnuts, which were even more unnecessary than in the previous muffin. Excellent blend of autumnal spices. Also, niiiicely moist, as applesauce is a large component.
Coconut I don't particularly like flaked coconut, so I skipped this muffin; the recipe calls for both coconut milk and grated coconut, though, so it's probably good if you're into that.
Coffee-Ginger There's more molasses than coffee and more cardamom than ginger in these, but while they are (unsurprisingly, given the recipe) rather sticky and sweet, these muffins are definitely in the tasty column with their odd twist on the classic gingersnap motif.
Cornflake-Pecan Enh. Would have been better with more allspice and crushed cornflakes instead of whole, but still not worth a do-over.
Cream Cheese & Raspberry OK so my grocery store was out of raspberries and I don't like them enough to drive to a different store, so these were actually raspberryless cream cheese & raspberry muffins. The idea is that you take plain batter and put a dollop of cream cheese (and 2 raspberries) in the center of the muffin, but in execution, this is very very odd since the batter-to-cream cheese ratio is waaay too low ... I have no idea how I could have fit two raspberries in there as well. (8 oz of cream cheese for 12 muffins?!) But if the batter part was doubled and everything kept at 12 muffins, then perhaps this would work well. The result I got is fairly edible, if heavy on the cream cheese.
Crumb Muffins with Raisins The base is bread crumbs instead of flour. Dry. Taste is dominated by the caraway seeds.
Crunch-Apple Delicious! Strange since it calls for dry milk powder, but the result is moist (despite what the name implies) and wonderful.
Dark-and-Moist Bran Incredibly moist, with very little in the way of dry ingredients. Sweet.
Date-and-Nut Kind of gross.
Deluxe Orange Very tangy (triple sec in addition to orange juice and orange zest).
Dill-and-Thyme Dill? No way I'm making this one.
Double Chocolate Cocoa power + chocolate chips = I'm everyone's best friend for a week. Oh god so good.
Dried Fruit Simple, un-presumptuous, tasty.
Early Morning Breakfast I'm a fan of the bacon muffins (and these include bacon), but there was no way I was going to make these. Spoon a pure egg+cheese mixture on top of batter? Gross-tastic.
Eggless Graham These tasted "healthy." Pretty good, though.
Eggless Rainbow This is one of the ones I'm pretty sure they didn't test before publication. The butter and the milk congealed together and then refused to mix properly with the flour. The result wanted to be pie crust, not muffins.
Fig–All-Bran Difficult to chop the dried figs up to small enough pieces that these would actually be good. A big favorite of the fig-lovers, however.
Fresh Fruit, Oat, and Bran Makes a ton of muffins; for the record, 3 c of peaches is about 6 peaches. A complex but not overwhelming or distracting texture, incredibly moist.
Fresh Peach The perfect peach muffin, though not as immediately peachy as the previous one. Does stay fresh for an entire week, however. A perfect balance of cinnamon.
German Unclear where the name comes from except that it has chopped hazelnuts in it. And rum, cinnamon, raisins, and orange zest. I went a little overboard with the orange zest, but in general these were *fantastic* muffins that included a little bit of lots of deliciousnesses.
Ginger-and-Molasses One of the best muffins in the book. The "ginger" is "0.25 c ground fresh ginger." Oh gods so good. The ginger in the resulting muffin is decadent but not overpowering.
Gingerbread After the previous muffin, these were a little disappointing (powdered spices instead of fresh), but otherwise just fine.
Granola One of the things I've enjoyed about this book is my exposure to ingredients I would normally never think of using. These muffins were quite good as a normal plain (with raisins) muffin, but I also have become one of those people who puts granola in yogurt now....
Grape Unfortunately, not all of the G muffins could be good. "Grape" here means "concentrated grape juice." The muffins were a dark gorgeous rich purple. And utterly vile. Half of the flour-base was cornmeal, which made the resulting texture incredibly coarse. Ew.
Hawaiian Nut Pineapple and macademia nuts. Pretty good; needed to be refrigerated due to the pineapple, but microwaved well and tasted fruity and fresh for the whole week.
Heirloom Raisin A creamed butter base (unusual for this book, but I prefer it), basically a plain butter muffin with raisins. The twist is that the raisins are to be soaked in "warmed brandy" for twenty minutes. I used my aunt's (very strong) homemade brambleberry wine, and it turned out fantastic. Makes only about 8, though.
High Fiber Calls for 3c of "canola cereal." The internet does not know what this is. (Yes, it is probably "granola cereal" but other recipes have just called this "granola" ...) Ergo, no muffins were made.
High Protein Calls for a lot of crazy stuff, but taste-wise, the overwhelming ingredient is soy flour, which lends the muffin a round, yeasty flavor that basically no one (including me) who tasted this muffin could get past. Probably fantastic if all-purpose or whole-wheat flour is substituted: raisins are similar to the Heirloom muffin, plus nutmeg, molasses, and honey.
Honey-Currant Currants are apparently like raisins, but slightly smaller and tarter. This is an amazingly well-rounded muffin, with a touch of amaretto. A nice twist on the basic raisin muffin.
Honey-Oatmeal with Fruit A little coarse from the oatmeal, but still good and not tooooo honey-y.
Honey-Graham Actually half corn flour based. Plain but edible.
Irish Coffee A muffin with a serious punch, but absolutely divine if you like coffee flavors. (Calls for both coffee liqueur and Irish whiskey.)
Lemon and Poppy Seed Light and moist, a good balance of lemon (zest and juice), and a good poppy seed-to-muffin ratio. Recommended.
Lime-flavored Kind of sweet. Calls for lime juice concentrate but I could only find lime juice, but even so, the limeyness was there. Chocolate chips make a nice combination.
Maple-bran I really like the texture the wheat bran gave this muffin, and the maple syrup gives it a different kind of sweetness that works quite well.
Maple-Pecan OK, but not as well-balanced as the maple-bran muffins.
Marmalade-Almond Another one that worked surprisingly well, and they lasted through the week without going bad even though orange marmalade factors significantly into the recipe.
Mini The recipe fails to say to put these "mini muffins" in non-standard muffin tins, but I did anyhow. The texture was amazing: wheat germ, quick cooking oats, and applesauce. At the bite-size mini-muffin level these were fantastic little snacks, but I think it would have been overwhelming for a normal-size muffin.
Molasses, Bran, and Raisin Another muffin that is golden yellow in the picture, but calls for dark molasses....... and so is dark brown in Real Life. A fairly standard muffin for this book, but still good. The raisins soak in boiling water for 20 minutes before going into the batter, though, which meant that they were plump and moist in the resulting muffins.… (meer)