Muffin Issues

When Liz makes muffins, the paper liners she uses in the muffin tins always stick to the muffins. Peeling them off is always a mess and takes half the muffin with it. Any suggestions on what we're doing wrong?

The muffins should be completely cool before attempting to remove the liner. I have heard that if the paper does stick to a cool muffin, wet a paper towel with hot water and wrap it around the paper liner for a few seconds. I've never had this problem, so I hope this was helpful to you.

Don't use papers. Just rub the inside of the muffin tins with butter or spray them with Pam.

A couple of more thoughts: use something like Baker's Joy (oil and flour) on the paper liners, which should help the problem with the paper's porosity.

Forget the papers and use a silicone surfaced tin. Letting the muffins cool for a while would also let them firm up a bit before trying to remove them.

Thank you, Karen, Howie and Larry. Your suggestions will be carried out.

One more suggestion, Jon, if you're still reading. As others have said, one solution is to do without the liners altogether, although there are downsides to some of the suggested techniques. If by "silicone surfaced", Larry meant all-silicone muffin "tins", I've found those give substandard baking results. If he meant Teflon-lined, in my experience those are just not non-stick enough to work with the stickiest batters. I've never actually seen a silicone-lined metal pan but maybe they exist and if so, might be worth a try. The flour-and-oil sprays work great but tend to build up a sticky mess on the top of muffin pans.

Which gets back to my other suggestion. If you want to stick with paper liners, look for a brand called "If You Care". They're touted as "environment-friendly", being made of unbleached paper. I started using them about five years ago not because they were "green" because they were cheaper than the usual kind. The thing is, their nonstick performance is far superior to the normal brand for some reason. As Karen said, letting the muffins cool is ideal but I'm not that patient and these come off of even very warm muffins with just a few minutes' (or even no) cooling. So you might look for the "If You Care" liners - imported from Sweden by Source Atlantique, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ. http://www.ifyoucare.com

Someone should invent muffin liners made from parchment paper...

One more suggestion, Jon, if you're still reading. As others have said, one solution is to do without the liners altogether, although there are downsides to some of the suggested techniques. If by "silicone surfaced", Larry meant all-silicone muffin "tins", I've found those give substandard baking results. If he meant Teflon-lined, in my experience those are just not non-stick enough to work with the stickiest batters. I've never actually seen a silicone-lined metal pan but maybe they exist and if so, might be worth a try.

Silicone-surfaced means a surface of silicone, not all-silicone (although I guess you could make the argument that the surface of an all-silicone pan is also silicone). Check out these silicone-surfaced pans, e.g.: http://www.thefind.com/kitchen/browse-world-kitchen-muffin-pan

All-silicone pans do suck for several reasons. Did you know that parchment paper is also silicone-surfaced?