blue artichoke

This Ultimate Snackdown is a bit different from the pumpkin cheesecake and chocolate chip cookie battles because the goal isn't to find the one perfect muffin recipe. I have 41 muffin recipes right now and they are all so different from each other that there isn't really a basis for comparison, other than "good" and "bad." So, this battle is designed to weed out the bad muffins. Luckily, the Blue Artichoke household adheres to a few routines, one of which is to have muffins on Sunday morning. Usually I make the muffins on Saturday and sometimes Gentleman Caller's friends come over for breakfast before heading off to Sunday disc golf league. So, I have already tackled several muffin recipes. Here's the tally so far:

Keepers:
Applesauce Spice Muffins, recipe from Gourmet, tastes like fall
Apricot Almond Muffins, recipe from Cook's Illustrated, really soft and light texture
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, source unknown, also makes a good loaf bread
Banana Coconut Muffins, recipe from Gourmet
Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins, recipe unknown, perfectly fluffy and soft, not too sweet
Buttermilk Blueberry or Cranberry Muffins, recipe unknown, made both variations and liked the cranberry version better
Honey Banana Muffins, recipe from Taste of Home, tastes great and low fat!
Lemon Raspberry Jumbo Muffins, source unknown, really easy and tasty in a good way
Orange Poppy Seed Muffins, source unknown, balanced sweetness and moist texture

These recipes are in danger of being tossed out, but might be redeemable with a few alterations:
Blueberry & Wild Rice Muffins, source unknown, not sweet enough
Cranberry-Walnut-Orange Muffins, recipe from Cook's Illustrated, not enough orange flavor

These recipes have been tossed out, and spat upon:
Honey Bran Muffins With Figs, recipe from Bon Appetit, I made it to use up some extra dried figs. The muffins were actually pretty good, tasted a lot like Fig Newton bars, but it took all my bowls and required lots of cleanup. In the end, they just aren't worth the trouble
Cranberry-Orange Muffins, recipe from Cooking Light, oddly rough texture
Double Chocolate Chip Muffins, source unknown, not particularly sweet with a crispy texture. I've had better.

So, you can see I've made quite a dent already, but there are still many more muffins to put through the paces.