Muffin Top Pans

A muffin top pan is a baking pan designed to just produce the large tops of muffins. This pan is very shallow and will usually only have cups that are about half an inch deep. The shallow cups in the muffin top pan allow the top of the muffin to bake up and get brown and crusty while eliminating the finely textured bottom of the muffin. Usually they are available in six cup pans but models that accommodate up to 12 cups can also be found. Muffin top pans are sometimes called bun pans as well as they are sometimes used to make individual buns or cakes.

Here's a recipe that is ideal for creating delicious muffin tops with your muffin top pan. Packaged cake mixes can also be used for making muffin tops with each mix creating around 12 or 15 muffin tops.

Chocolate Muffin Tops with Orange Glaze

(makes six muffin tops)

Ingredients

1 1/8 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/8 cup cocoa powder, Dutch process

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 ounce semisweet or bittersweet chocolate square, melted and cooled

1/2 cup whole or 2% milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

1 Tablespoon whole or 2% milk

1/2 teaspoon orange, lemon, or vanilla extract

Baking

Position shelf in middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees. Generously spray or coat the muffin top pan with vegetable spray or oil. Set aside.

In a medium size bowl, combine, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Sift if cocoa powder is lumpy. Set aside.

In a medium size bowl, combine milk, sugar, vegetable oil, egg, and vanilla extract. With a hand held electric mixer on medium-low, combine until mixture becomes bubbly.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the milk mixture. With a few strokes, almost combine the ingredients. Then, stir in the cooled, melted chocolate square and mix to combine. With a hand-held mixer, on low, mix the ingredients until smooth, for about 20 seconds.

Pour the batter evenly into the muffin top pan cavities. If necessary, lightly spread as much as you can to reach all edges.

Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops spring back when lightly touched.

Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes in the pan before removing to a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, make the glaze: combine the confectioner's sugar, milk, and extract. Mixture should flow like corn syrup when the tines of a fork are dipped in and held over the bowl. Correct with more confectioner's sugar or milk, if necessary.

Place wire rack with cooled muffin tops over waxed paper. Drizzle glaze freely over muffin tops with the tines of a fork.

Allow glaze to set about 10 minutes before serving. These glazed muffin tops do not need refrigeration

More information on muffin pans