Picture this: a gathering of black-bedecked New Yorkers after work, sipping drinks, talking in murmurs. We walk in, exhausted from testing recipes, laden with cake boxes. Heads turn. From behind minuscule glasses, someone asks, “What’d you bring?” We duck our heads—was this really the right thing to bring to a techno-urban wasteland of the terminally hip?—and say, “We made muffins.” Bingo.
Everyone smiles. They grab the boxes, tear them open, laugh, enjoy themselves.
And not once, but over and over again this scenario played out as we were testing recipes. Why do muffins inspire such unbounded delight? Is it their taste? Their homeyness? Their simplicity? Whatever it is, it’s irresistible, even in Manhattan.