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Variations
Bran Muffins--Substitute 1 cup bran for 1 cup of the flour. Whole Wheat Date Muffins-Use whole wheat flour instead of the white flour, and add 3/4 cup chopped dates. Bacon Muffins--Fry 1/4 lb. bacon cut in small pieces, and fold into muffin batter just before baking.
These are three variations on a plain muffin batter rather than standalone recipes, so the base formula governs everything: a typical muffin batter of this period runs about 2 cups flour, 2 to 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 egg, 1 cup milk, 2 to 4 tablespoons sugar and 2 to 4 tablespoons melted butter.
- Mix as little as possibleThe one rule that decides whether these come out tender or tough. Stir the wet into the dry only until the flour is damp and the batter still looks lumpy; the folding-in of bacon or dates should be the last few strokes.
- OvenThe recipe gives no temperature or time. Muffins are generally baked in a hot oven, roughly 400 to 425F, so the baking powder lifts fast and sets the crumb; about twenty to twenty-five minutes in a standard 12-cup tin.
- BranBran here most likely means plain unprocessed wheat bran rather than a packaged bran cereal, though the recipe does not say. Bran absorbs far more liquid than flour, so soak the cup of bran in the recipe's milk for 10 to 15 minutes before mixing, or add 2 to 3 tablespoons extra milk; otherwise the batter stiffens on standing and bakes dry.
- Whole wheatA straight one-for-one swap works but gives a denser, faster-browning muffin. Watch the tops toward the end of baking, since the extra bran and the sugar in the dates both accelerate colour.
- DatesThree-quarters cup chopped dates is generous for a 12-muffin batch. Toss the pieces in a spoonful of the measured flour first so they separate instead of clumping at the bottom.
- BaconA quarter pound of bacon renders down to roughly half a cup of cooked pieces. Drain it well and let it cool before folding in, or the hot fat will begin cooking the egg. The rendered fat can stand in for some or all of the butter in the base recipe, and the bacon's salt means the batter needs little or none of its own.
- YieldOn a base of about 2 cups flour, each variation makes roughly 12 medium muffins. All three are best within a few hours of baking.
Muffin variations printed as a list under a single parent batter are a hallmark of early twentieth-century American cookbooks, when standardised cup measures and reliably packaged baking powder made a base formula something a cook could vary with confidence rather than a fresh gamble each time. Bran and whole wheat appear here as much for health as for flavour: wheat bran was widely promoted in the 1920s and 1930s as a corrective for sluggish digestion, and it turns up frequently in quick breads of the period, where its coarseness mattered least.