Are you a “butter the muffin tins” kind of gal, or do you prefer to use baking cups when you make muffins or cupcakes?
I do a little of both, depending on the recipe. Sometimes, food likes to stick to the baking cup, wasting a lot of food and effort. So on recipes like Sloppy Cornbread Muffins, Crustless Breakfast Quiches and Pancake Sausage Muffins, I get out the butter and go to town on my muffin tins.
But for most other muffins, Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins, Orange Muffins, Coconut Flour Muffins…I find that once cooled, they come off the muffin paper just fine. It’s SO much easier to prep and to clean up when I use muffin cups. Or maybe I’m just lazy.
All that to say that I am running low on muffin cups. I prefer Unbleached Baking Cups because they are safer for my food and safer for the environment, but they can be pretty pricey. I hesitantly went to Amazon today to see if they’d cost me an arm and a leg this time or if they were a decent price for me to stock up.
Yipee!!! They were on sale and with subscribe and save I got them for just over $1/pack. This is an excellent deal for Unbleached Baking Cups, so I decided to share my joy with you (ah what little it takes for me to get excited).
In case you want to jump at this deal too, here are the specifics:
If You Care Unbleached Baking Cups at Amazon, $29.38/24 boxes which hold 60 muffin cups each. (If you’re a geek like me, you’ll be interested to know that this all equals $1.22/package and you get a total of 1440 muffin cups which is a lot of muffins!)
What to do with “subscribe and save”:
You’ll save an extra 15% on the cost of your item, plus receive free shipping if you select “subscribe and save”!! However, if you don’t want to be stuck with future cost and products, select delivery for every 6 months. Then, as soon as your items arrive, log into your Amazon account, click on “manage subscribe and save items”. There, you can cancel your subscription!
Last time I bought a case of muffin papers like this it lasted me well over a year. And we eat a lot of muffins. Apparently something like 1440 muffins over the course of a year. (That’s like an average of 120 muffins a month. What can I say? I still had my calculator out.)
Which do you prefer? Muffin cups, or lots of butter and effort? Or a little bit of both like me?
Azure has these as well, for $1.50 a pack… A little more, but I’m a diehard Azure fan and I love to get as much of my shopping as I can done in one place. :-)
I use muffin cups for most of my muffins. Some are just too sticky, as you said and then it is worth it to butter the pans. I just ordered these baking cups, so hopefully I will be making many, many muffins this year!
Thanks for the subscribe and save tip. I’ve never really taken a good look at it. We could really use the savings on 7th gen. sanitary products. 4 sweet sisters and all :)
I use cups if I am giving them away, but for home use, I use the USA pans. NOTHING sticks to them!!!! The muffins literally come right out. You wipe the pan and you’re done.
I have never heard if them. Where did you buy them?
I MUST agree! I was just about to post the same comment. These pans are AMAZING! I am so pleased with them and I am gradually swapping out every pan in my kitchen for these. They
ROCK.
Aluminized steel, though? Is that safe??
I first learned about them from Sue Becker’s Getting Started video. They are amazing. Here’s a link: http://www.usapans.com/
Different places have them for good pricing. I will be replacing all of my pans, too!
I usually use paper liners, unless the item I’m baking tends to stick, then I go for the butter. :)
Actually, if you only use the cups on about half your recipes, your family eats closer to 240 muffins a month, which is more than 7 muffins a day, then divided by the six members of your family: that means you each average eating more than one muffin per day, ALL YEAR LONG. There you have it. Scientific proof that you guys love you some muffins! ;-)
I thought of this, too!! LOL!
This is so timely because I was just thinking this morning that I needed to see what was out there for ‘safe’ paper liners. Thanks!
I use them on cupcakes but for everything else I like that little bit of crusty goodness. I just throw my pans in the dish washer to clean them up. Most foods will release just fine if you let them sit for 5 minutes after taking them from the oven.
olive oil cooking spray :) due to a combination of being cheap, lazy and I never remember to buy liners!
That’s a really good deal! I don’t know what I would do with all the muffin liners. :)
Darn on the good deal – I just bought a case from Azure (yes, a whole case, we like muffins, too).
Muffin liners all the way. I’ve tried and tried to butter the muffin tins many times, had to spend forever scrubbing them down after half the muffin marries the tin, so I gave up. I’d love to have those perfectly formed muffins that just pop out, but I’m not that magical.
I do wonder… does anyone have the stoneware muffin deals from Pampered Chef? I’ve been debating their stoneware on and off for a while, but haven’t had the chutzpah to spend that much money on those suckers.
Thanks! I bake muffins and cupcakes on a regular basis for playgroups and always use liners because I don’t have the energy to clean muffin tins. LOL I also saw they had the mini muffin cups too, so picked up a box of them too! I imagine I won’t need to buy muffin cups for several years now. LOL
I got to the point where I didn’t feel good about the liners – between the bleach/dye/whatever, as well as the waste factor… BUT, it is often such a huge messy bother that I find myself not making muffins and such.
I think this is a great middle option! I’m not sure where I’m going to store them, but I do plan to jump on it.
Vitacost also has them for 1.44 a pack. I was going to order 3 or 4 boxes to last us the year. The subscribe and save is too large of a quantity for us!
I use silicone baking liners. After ALOT of research, I found that it wasn’t a dangerous option as far as leeching chemicals into our food (I’m sure someone will now point out that it is actually going to kill us, but at the time, there was no real evidence that it is a problem). The muffins come out easy right out of the oven, the pan is not dirty, and you can reuse them as many times as you want. I LOVE them!
I just discovered that “all” parchment paper liners, bleached or unbleached use silicon to make it non-stick. There is controversy as to whether or not it is good for humans to consume. I tend to err on the cautious side. I am still searching for a truly safe cup cake liner. If it exists I will find it but for now I will have to go back to using some sort of oil. I don’t eat gluten due to Celiac’s Disease ( and the fact that gluten consumption causes leaky gut in all humans) and almond flour and coconut flour seem to stick so much more to my muffin pan. Anyone know of a safe, aluminum free, muffin pan that isn’t toxic from the non-stick coatings or the material it is made of? Searching for the perfect muffin pan and/or muffin liner!!
Have you found an unbleached cupcake liner with no coating yet? I’ve been searching, but have been unable to find any! I just recently purchased Granite Ware Better Browning Muffin Pan, 13-inch by 9-inch (Made in the USA) and have also found and modified (to use gluten-free flour) a recipe for “baker’s grease” which works well with respect to the muffins not sticking to the pan (equal parts flour, vegetable oil, vegetable shortening). You can just mix it and brush it on the pan and any leftover refrigerates well for over a week. I’ve used the roasted garbanzo flour (besan) and buckwheat flour and they have both worked – I think the rice and millet flours are too fine, so I haven’t tried them yet, but oat flour might also work. If you have found the unbleached uncoated cupcake liner, please tell us all.