How to Make Homemade Muffins Moist: Our Top Tips

Muffins are the ideal breakfast snack. A fun baking project and a delicious meal, muffins can be made in several different flavors. Whether you’re a fan of the classic blueberry muffin or a more elaborate muffin flavor like salted date and bran, there are a few tips and tricks you should keep in mind when baking them. 

Choosing a muffin recipe that you enjoy is arguably the most crucial part of making a delicious batch of muffins. This being so, the next most important factor is making sure that they have the right texture. While certain baked goods are meant to have a dry and flaky crust, muffins are not one of them. Instead, the perfect muffin should be soft, tender and moist. To create a muffin with the desired moist texture, you’ll want to carefully follow each recipe step.

Additionally, you can make a few other changes to ensure that the texture of your muffins turns out as desired. To help you make sure your next batch of homemade muffins is moist, the Bob’s Red Mill baking experts have put together a list of our favorite tips and tricks. Keep scrolling to learn all there is to know about your favorite breakfast treat.

Tips to Make Homemade Muffins Moist

Follow these tips and tricks to ensure that your homemade muffin recipes turn out as expected. From mixing the ingredients correctly to testing them for doneness, there are several ways that you can guarantee baking success.

Keep Wet and Dry Ingredients Separately

While mixing all ingredients in the same bowl might save you time preparing and cleaning up after your muffins, it’s a sure-fire way to overwork your muffin batter. Overworking batter is easy to do, which means that you’ll want to be extra careful the next time you mix ingredients. Additionally, make sure that the wet and dry ingredients of the batter are mixed separately. 

First, mix the wet ingredients together in a bowl and then mix the dry ingredients in another to prevent the muffin mix from being over-mixed. Some recipes will even recommend adding in greek yogurt or buttermilk to bump up the moisture. Then, to properly add the wet ingredients to the dry, create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and slowly begin pouring the wet ingredients in the center. As you’re pouring the wet ingredients, stir the mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Lastly, avoid busting out your electric mixer and stick to hand mixing when you go to bake muffins. 

Add All Flavorings Last

To prevent your muffins from producing too dense of a texture, add all of your flavoring last. While herbs and spices can be mixed into the other dry ingredients, add-ins like nuts, fruit and cheese should be added at the end. Doing so will help make sure the texture of the muffin is not compromised throughout the mixing process. Additionally, when mixing in the add-ins stir them in lightly to avoid overworking the dough. 

Consider Paper Liners

Once it’s time to bake your muffins, you should consider a few things to get it right, one of which is how to line the muffin pan. Prevent your muffins from sticking to the pan by greasing your muffin tin or lining it with paper liners. If you choose to grease your pan, make sure that all areas of the muffin cup are thoroughly greased—bases and sides. If you’re hoping to create extra moist muffins or aren’t going to eat them for a while, consider using paper liners instead. Paper liners will help keep the moisture inside of the baked goods, allowing the muffins to remain fresher for longer.

Don’t Overfill the Muffin Cups

The amount in which you fill the cups on a muffin tin largely impacts how your muffins will turn out. When baking moist muffins, aim to fill the cups about ¾ full. This will produce decent-sized muffins yet also leave enough room for the tops of them to rise without creating a mess. If you’re baking with a recipe that requires you to fill the muffin cups up more or less, then we’d recommend doing as the recipe states. Variance on muffin ingredients and baking temperatures will directly impact how they rise and bake.

Check the Temperature of Your Oven

Most recipes will state the recommended temperature to use when baking muffins. However, if you’re using an alternate flour or quick bread recipe, you’ll likely want to adjust the temperature and baking time. Oven temperature directly affects a muffin’s texture and how well it rises. Muffins baked at too high of a temperature will produce an overly cooked outer crust and an undercooked filling. Muffins cooked at low temperatures for too long may dry out, creating an unpleasant texture and taste. When making homemade muffins, double-check the recipe for cooking requirements and place a thermometer in your oven to ensure that it’s heating properly. 

Test if Muffins Are Fully Cooked

A muffin recipe will often let you know how to tell your baked goods are done baking. While some will have you look at the outside of the muffin, others may have you poke through to the center and ensure the dessert is cooked all the way through. For a no-fail way to check muffins for doneness, stick a toothpick into the center of the muffin. If it’s done, your toothpick will come out clean with just a few moist crumbs. After the muffins are fully cooked, quickly transfer them to a wire rack or cooling tray. Leaving muffins in a pan for too long may result in soggy muffins.

Top Your Muffins with Flavor

Looking for a way to add more flavor to your moist muffin recipe without drying out your cake? Once your muffin tray has been filled to the correct amount, you can decorate the tops of the batter with more nuts, fruits, granola and more. Adding these ingredients to the tops of your muffin won’t affect their texture as they rise, and the flavors will bake right in. 

Fill the Empty Cups of Your Muffin Tin

If when filling up your muffin tin, you find that there is not enough batter to do so, don’t worry. Muffins will still cook well, even if some of the cups are left empty. However, if you really want to make sure your muffins turn out correctly, half fill the empty muffin cups with water. Doing so will make sure that the muffins bake evenly and that the pan is protected from buckling. It will also create a light layer of steam in the oven, ensuring that your muffins don’t dry out as they rise. 

Allow Your Muffins to Cool

Once your muffins are thoroughly baked, It’s time to remove them from the oven. After removing the muffins, allow them to sit and cool in the muffin pan for a few minutes before placing them on a wire cooling rack. This step is even more critical if you’ve oiled the pan and your muffins are not in a paper liner. Allowing them to cool slightly in the pan before removing them will help keep them from falling apart. This being said, you only want to leave them in the pan for a short amount of time—about five minutes. Any longer, and you run the risk of your muffins going soggy as they cool off. 

Refrain from Making Muffin Batter in Advance

Wondering if you can make muffin batter in advance? Whether you’d like to double up on your next batch of muffins or simply complete the batter ahead of time to bake later, we don’t recommend making muffin batter in advance. When cooking with baking soda and baking powder, the ingredients become activated as soon as they contact a liquid. Therefore, making batter ahead of time will cause the reaction of those ingredients to fizzle out, and your muffins won’t rise as intended.

While we’d stay away from making the batter ahead of time, muffins can still be made in advance and will usually keep for a few days after you bake them. Then, to enjoy your muffins warm, simply reheat them. A few minutes at a low temperature in a toaster oven should get the job done!

If you began reading this article wondering how to make muffins moist, we hope you’ve found the answer. Making homemade muffins that flaunt a moist and tender texture isn’t tricky. With the tips and tricks listed above, making delicious muffins will quickly become second nature. Make a sweet muffin recipe like these blueberry muffins, or choose from one of the delightful savory muffin recipes in this article. No matter how and when you enjoy this treat, it’s sure to satisfy your cravings. From everyone at Bob’s Red Mill, we wish you the best on your baking journey!