Did you know there's a simple trick to making crunchy outer-layered muffins?

I made my first batch of breakfast muffins this past weekend, unfortunately as you already know I'm not much of a baker and thus it didn't quite make it on to the list of posts to do for The Adventures of Tummy- they all can't be winners, right? However, I did learn one very interesting thing while making a batch of muffins, the trick to creating a slightly crunchy outer layer on the muffins, a very important trick if you're a muffin kind of person and it's soooo easy to do too!

The secret is... Add the sugar in at the last minute. For example, the muffin recipe I tried out this past weekend called for flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, cinnamon, eggs, milk, butter and three types of berries. All the dry ingredients ingredients (minus the sugar) are sifted and mixed together. All the wet ingredients are mixed together. The the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients are mixed together. Lastly, the berries and sugar are added to the mix and stirred carefully until just combined.

I'm no baker so don't really have a clue about the science behind all this but adding the sugar into the mix with the solid ingredients (be it bananas, berries or whatever) does make for a slightly crunchy outer-layer on the muffins that is oh-so pleasing texturally.