I have coffee with friends each Wednesday morning, and I frequently take a treat. I often make muffins. Occasionally I make hundred-year-old muffin recipes, and have my friends taste test them; but, often I make modern muffin recipes that I find online. Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that modern muffin recipes generally are much sweeter than old-time ones.
For example, several years ago I made a hundred-year-old Blueberry Muffin recipe that called for 1 tablespoon of sugar. Most modern Blueberry Muffin recipes call for much more. The Glorious Treats Blueberry Muffins recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar. Sally’s Baking Addiction Blueberry Muffin recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups sugar (1/2 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup brown sugar + an additional 1/2 cup brown sugar for the topping). The exact number of muffins varied a little from recipe to recipe (mainly dependent on exactly how full the muffin cups were filled), but the recipes all made a similar number of muffins.
Similarly, modern Pumpkin Muffin recipes call for lots of sugar. The King Arthur Pumpkin Muffin recipe calls for slightly over 1 cup of sugar (3/4 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup brown sugar + additional granulated sugar to sprinkle on the top). Joy Food Sunshine’s recipe for Pumpkin Muffins calls for 1 1/2 cups of sugar (3/4 cup granulated sugar + 3/4 cup brown sugar. However, a hundred-year-old recipe for Squash Muffins (pumpkin could easily be substituted for the squash) only called for 1/4 cup of sugar.
Why were muffins generally less sweet a hundred years ago? I don’t know, but my hypothesis is that today they are considered a treat or sweet breakfast bread, while years ago they were frequently eaten as a dinner roll.
I wonder, was sugar more expensive sp less waa used whith old recipes?
Now I need muffins! 💕
Interesting! We had lunch at a restaurant a few weeks ago where they served muffins with our entree salads. We really enjoyed them, and they definitely weren’t sweet. Also, this reminds me of the different styles of cornbread, where you have some recipes that are sweet and some not.
Cornbread is an interesting example. I’ll make cornbread occasionally and never put sugar in it, but some people really do. In my family I was told when young that cornbread omits sugar, whereas “johnny cake” is the same recipe with it.
FWIW, the same is true of soda bread. I’ll make soda bread with beer (one can or bottle to three cups of self rising flour). The recipe I use requires sugar which I never put in, and I don’t know why a person would.
Very intersting.
I suspect almost all American breads were less sweet a century ago. American white bread is insanely sweet if you aren’t used to eating it.
FWIW, my mother used to occasionally make muffins when I was young and they were not sweet at all. Now, she was generally not a good cook in general, but I’ll note that she’d learned to cook in an Irish Canadian household that cooked in the British style. As an adult I was surprised by how sweet muffins that other people made are.
I really dislike muffins in general, and this may be why. I’m not a fan of really sweet breads for the most part, with sweet rolls being the exceptions. A bakery makes cupcakes where I am that’s really popular and people buy them for office events and I always avoid them. The same with homemade carrot cake, which is a type of cake I don’t like in general, but which some people make incredibly sweet and oily.
I was thinking the same thing as another reader, that maybe sugar was more expensive. Also, I’m sure tastes change over time.
The cost of sugar was my first reaction, too.
Well I know the muffins today are sweeter even then the ones 50 years ago. So many of them are more a cupcake then a muffin in days gone by
Muffins were definitely less sweet in the past. Sugar was not prohibitively expensive in 1926. It was in 1920 after WWI ended, primarily due to lack of availability, but it had dropped in cost by 1926. The main difference was muffins were considered a type of bread historically, and if sweetened, it was with honey or jam, similar to scones or biscuits. I found savory scones and toast more frequently during the time I was in South Africa. Scones were served with shredded cheese or one could choose clotted cream and jam, and one could order a savory French toast which was delicious. I think we all know that the US habit of putting sugar in everything has not been good for our health.
If I’m not mistaken, the more sugar one eats the more it takes to get the same “sugar hit”. When table sugar was not overused, it took less to get things sweet.
When stationed in S.Korea, I got used to eating Korean chocolate bars. Once back in the USA, I went right to buying a large Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar. It was abnormally sweet to my taste buds.
So, I’m trying to use fruit, molasses, honey, and other things to temper my white sugar fixation. As a diabetic, I also have to watch white carbs such as potato chips, french fries, etc. It converts to blood sugar quicker than table sugar.
Ciao for now,
Chow for laters
One more explanation as to why (generally speaking) our population is so much more overweight these days….