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When baking muffins and adding the liquid ingredients to the "well" in the dry ingredients, the recipe says "to just combine". Does this mean not to add the whole liquid mixture, only enough to wet the dry ingredients?

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    Seems likely that it's a precaution against overmixing, to avoid toughening the finished product. Jul 16, 2012 at 4:19

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As Adele suggested in the comments, this is a common instruction to guard against overmixing. You mix everything in, and mix it until it's just barely combined. You just want to make sure there aren't any big pockets of dry ingredients; once all the wet and dry is combined, you're done.

If you're curious why you don't want to overmix, see a previous question: Over-stirring muffin mixtures.

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  • It's because of the glutens in flour which develop when you stir or mix. It makes bread delicious but muffins not so much!
    – lemontwist
    Jul 16, 2012 at 21:51

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