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The Ephemerality Of The Perfect Muffin

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Nov 20, 2017
The Ephemerality Of The Perfect Muffin

This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts. (And please subscribe!)

Julia Turner is editor-in-chef of Slate and a co-host of the Culture Gabfest podcast. And she has strong opinions ... about muffins:

"I want [a muffin] to have some density, some good fruit in it, some interesting texture, but not just be an undifferentiated cloud of sweet crumbs,” she tells Dan in this week's episode.

Julia (below) argues that muffins should be about the size of a field hockey ball and far less sweet and fluffy than cake.

JuliaTurner (1)

She also has strong feelings about muffin tops being sold separately from muffin bottoms:

"Maybe it’s just my puritan upbringing in Massachusetts, but the sheer waste of it seems frustrating," she argues.

"I kind of like the little spongy roundness and the definition of the shape of the little muffin bottom," she adds. "It’s such a pleasing little round blob."

But Dan argues that the muffin top is the best part of the muffin because it has the most crisp bites.

"The best bite of the muffin is ... [that] piece of ledge crust that is crispy [outside] and doughy on the inside," he counters. "That's the muffin money bite."

Can Dan and Julia find a muffin that they can both agree to love? Listen in to the episode to hear the full debate.

It's a classic Sporkful episode from way back, which we're "defrosting" just for you. (This one hasn't been publicly available in years!!)

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Photos: Courtesy of Slate and FlickrCC/Devlon Duthie

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