How to Bake Muffins that Won't Stick to the Pan

Does it drive you crazy to spend the time baking muffins and then have so much of the muffin stick to the cupcake paper? That's a lot of good muffin going to waste! It's easy to keep any muffin from sticking to the pan, even if you don't have expensive non-stick cookware. (Which usually gets scratched and soon begins to stick anyway.)

Prepare the pans first before you even begin to mix the muffins. Muffins, whether from a purchased mix or made from scratch need to be mixed quickly and as little as possible to prevent them from being tough when baked. So you need to have your muffin pans lined up and waiting, and the oven pre-heated before you mix the batter.

With a pastry brush or a cheap sandwich bag over your fingers grease each muffin cup thoroughly. You do not need to use so much shortening or oil that there are globs of grease, rather complete coverage of the cup is the issue.

Now, here's the secret step so that you can get those muffins out of the tins later. You are going to make liners for the bottoms of the cups. Take ordinary wax paper and tear off an appropriate length. You will need to experiment with your own muffin pans to figure out how much this will be. To get started your first time, try about 9 inches. Accordion fold this into quarters. Then fold this long strip into 4 or 5 accordion folds in the other direction. You now have a small rectangle of layers of wax paper. Grab your scissors and cut that whole stack into a circular shape, and discard the edges. You now have a stack of small circles.

Before you separate them, compare their size with your muffin tins. They should be able to fit flat in the bottom of the cups. It won't matter if they are a little small, but you don't want them to be too big. Trim smaller if it looks necessary. Then place one circle in the bottom of each cup. Wrinkles are bad. Flat is good. Grease the top of each piece of wax paper.

Mix your muffins and fill the cups with batter as the recipe directs. You want the muffins to rise above the edges of the cups, but not spread over the flat part of the pan. Some recipes work best with the cups filled 3/4 full; others do all right with the cups filled to the top. This has to do with knowing your recipe, but if the muffins spread flat along the top of the pan they will be difficult to remove with either my "secret" or with cupcake liner papers.

When the muffins come out of the oven let them sit in the pan for about 2 minutes. Then run a thin-bladed, small spatula or knife around the side of each muffin, between the muffin and the pan. The muffins will easily fall right out of the tin. Remove the small piece of wax paper from the bottom of the muffin immediately, while it is still hot.

This might sound like a lot more work than grabbing a stack of cupcake liners, but it's well worth it if you want attractive muffins. There are at least three reasons to use this idea: 1. You can avoid the expense of cupcake liner papers. 2. Your muffins will look great all by themselves. 3. You don't waste all the good muffin that sticks to the paper when it is pulled off.