Muffins & Cookies

The Simple Things, Done Right

Not everything I bake takes two days. Sometimes the best thing that can come out of an oven is a warm muffin with a crackly sugar top, or a cookie that’s crisp at the edges and soft in the center — the kind you eat standing up in the kitchen before it’s fully cooled, because you just can’t wait.

Muffins and cookies are humble bakes. They don’t demand the same patience as sourdough or the precision of croissant lamination. But that simplicity is exactly what makes them hard to get right — because there’s nowhere to hide. When you’re working with just a few ingredients, the quality of each one shows up in every bite.

That’s why I treat my muffins and cookies with the same care I give everything else at Einkorn Bakes. Real butter. Whole eggs. Quality chocolate. Fresh, seasonal ingredients. No vegetable oil, no artificial flavors, no preservatives. Just honest baking that tastes like it came from someone’s kitchen — because it did.

What Goes In — and What Doesn’t

The ingredient list on a store-bought muffin or cookie reads like a chemistry textbook — soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, modified food starch, mono- and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate, artificial flavors. These additives aren’t there for taste. They’re there to make the product survive weeks on a shelf, travel thousands of miles, and still look the same when it arrives.

My ingredient list reads like a recipe your grandmother would recognize.

Mine vs. Store-Bought

This isn’t about judgment — it’s about knowing what you’re eating. Here’s what actually changes when a muffin or cookie is made by hand with real ingredients instead of manufactured for mass retail.

My Muffins

A great muffin is tender inside with a domed, slightly crunchy top — and it should taste like whatever’s in it, not just sugar. I mix my muffin batters gently and by hand, because overmixing develops too much gluten and turns muffins tough and rubbery. Every batch is small, so every muffin gets attention.

My Cookies

I believe the best cookies walk a line — crisp enough to snap at the edges, soft enough to give in the center. Getting that texture right isn’t about luck. It’s about cold butter, rested dough, good chocolate, and not overbaking by even a minute. Every batch of cookie dough I make rests in the refrigerator before baking — the cold dough spreads more slowly in the oven, giving the outside time to set while the center stays tender.

Why I Brown My Butter

Browning butter is one of the simplest things you can do to transform a baked good — and almost nobody does it because it takes an extra five minutes.

When butter is heated past its melting point, the milk solids at the bottom of the pan begin to toast. The butter turns from golden to amber, and the kitchen fills with an aroma that’s warm, nutty, and almost toffee-like. That’s the Maillard reaction — the same process that gives bread its golden crust and steak its sear — happening inside the butter itself.

Brown butter adds a layer of flavor that regular melted butter simply can’t. It’s deeper, more complex, and it makes chocolate chip cookies taste like they have a secret ingredient. They do — it’s just time and attention.

Made for Sharing

Muffins and cookies are the most shareable things a kitchen can produce. They don’t need a plate or a knife. They travel well. They fit in a lunchbox, on a coffee table, or in a paper bag left at a neighbor’s door.

That’s what I love most about baking these. A loaf of sourdough feeds a family. A croissant is a personal indulgence. But a box of cookies? That’s a gift. It says “I was thinking of you” in a way that words sometimes can’t.

When Einkorn Bakes opens, I want my muffins and cookies to be the thing Maplewood neighbors bring to a new family on the street, tuck into a thank-you basket, or grab on the way to a friend’s house. Not because they’re fancy — because they’re real, and they’re good, and they were made that morning by someone who cares.