Kitchen Myths

Suppose you have a 12-cup muffin tin and enough batter for only, say, six muffins. This myth says to fill the empty cups with water or you’ll get uneven baking and your tin might warp. It does no harm, but it’s a waste of time and has no effect whatever on the evenness of cooking. Why would it? Even with all 12 cups full of batter, most of them are not adjacent to another cup on one or two sides and things cook perfectly fine. If your tin warps, that’s a sign of low quality, and maybe you need a replacement.

There is one scenario where putting water in the empty cups makes sense—if you have already greased them. Baking an empty, greased cup makes for hard cleanup!