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I just made muffins, which turned out to have a great flavor and density, but are very crumbly.

I followed this recipe, and made the following substitutions:

  • 1/2 cup of flour --> coffee flour
  • 3/4 cup milk + 1/4 cup coffee --> 1/4 cup milk + 1 cup coffee

The recipe also calls for the butter to be melted before mixed. I'm currently thinking that both the small amount of fat (1 stick of butter), and consistency (melted as opposed to cold/room temp) is probably causing the crumble.

Are there any ways I can make the recipe less crumbly without increasing the amount of fat or oil? Or only doing so slightly?

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  • Just to be sure - the recipe calls for 1-1/2 cups of flour, and you used 1 cup flour + 1/2 cup coffee flour?
    – brhans
    May 9, 2018 at 16:38
  • What do you mean by "coffee flour"? I have never seen this term before.
    – rumtscho ♦
    May 9, 2018 at 16:38
  • @brhans that's correct. Coffee flour is flour made from the coffee fruit
    – spacetyper
    May 9, 2018 at 16:53

2 Answers 2

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It looks like you substituted fully a third of the total flour in the recipe with coffee flour. Admittedly I have never used (or even heard of) coffee flour before, but I bet it does not come out as sticky as regular all-purpose flour when mixed with water (or milk, coffee, etc.)

You can make paste (for sticking up posters and wallpaper) with wheat flour and water, so if your muffins came out crumbly and wouldn't stick together, I would suspect the coffee flour, or rather a lack of wheat flour. That novel ingredient does sound like an interesting idea, but one third of a critical component like flour might be too radical.

Both the milk and the coffee in the recipe are primarily water (at least for structural purposes), so I doubt if that substitution was your problem. As far as the butter, one stick sounds like a reasonable amount to me, and lack of fat doesn't usually cause crumbliness.

It would be a good experiment to make the muffins as specified once, just to see what they are supposed to be like, and then start substituting (conservatively at first) in the next batch.

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    Following on from your notion ..perhaps use a strong bread flour to bump up the gluten?
    – Robin Betts
    May 9, 2018 at 18:00
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Instead of asking a bunch of people, like me, who have never heard of Coffee Flour and have no clue what it is, I suggest you ask the company that makes and markets it - http://www.coffeeflour.com/

Go so far as to request a recipe instead of 'shotgunning' it like you appear to be attempting to.

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    I didn't realize coffee flour was so unknown, it's been at my local grocer for over a year. It's generally recommend to substitute up to 1/3 the flour in a recipe.
    – spacetyper
    May 9, 2018 at 19:32
  • I think spacetyper was actually experimenting. Is that frowned upon now?
    – Lorel C.
    May 10, 2018 at 1:28

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