The Step You Can Skip Before Adding Fruit To Muffins

Has the internet overcomplicated muffin baking? An online search for muffin hacks will yield dozens of tips: Blend wet and dry ingredients separately. Never, ever overmix. Coat blueberries in flour so they won't sink. There are gems of bakers' wisdom in all that advice, but it also needs a grain of salt. Sometimes the extra steps are just unnecessary. As it turns out, flour-coating berries might be a hack you're better off avoiding, meaning you can trim down your time in the kitchen and still do some great baking. And in an exclusive interview, Laura Kanya, Research & Development Chef at Ann Clark Ltd., tells The Takeout says it's more important for the fruit to be dry than rinsed.

Many bakers will say you should rinse your fruit before adding it to the batter, even if it has already been washed. Reportedly, even a short soak in clean water can help prevent fresh and frozen fruit from staining your muffin batter. But as Kanya notes, "You don't need to rinse your fruit specifically to add to your batter. You can pat dry the fruit before adding. Thaw the fruit, then pat dry."

Rinsing can add extra moisture to delicate fruit like berries, making them juicier and more likely to bleed into the batter. We've already gone over how you absolutely need to wash produce before peeling, but you should time it so the fruit is dry before it goes into the batter. "If you prefer to rinse it, then rinse and towel dry off," explains Kanya. 

Every bite of a fruit-based muffin should be filled with flavor, and infusing taste into every ounce is relatively easy. Laura Kanya says the best way to highlight the fruit in your muffins is to cut it up in little chunks. "Smaller pieces are the best, so it cooks through but stays intact and you get a bite of fruit with each bite of muffin and it's consistently dispersed," she says. Choose fruits that are saturated with flavor, like blueberries, instead of ones with higher water content, like watermelon, to avoid a mushy texture.

Fruit should be the last thing you add to your batter, and when you do, be generous with it. Some recipes say to use a ½ cup of fruit per every cup of flour in the batter, and others suggest even more.  Whatever amount you use, mix in fruit chunks using a spatula and only stir a few times (seriously, overmixing is a mistake that will ruin your muffins). The more you stir, the greater the chance you'll break up fruit pieces and start to discolor the batter. "Fold in right at the end to prevent streaking," shares Kanya. "I sometimes fold in half the fruit, then add fruit as I go." Some bakers also layer fruit-filled batter on top of plain batter to stop the fruit from sinking or bursting at the bottom.