Baking in American/updated

Yes, I am now on vacation, so I have time to complain a bit again.

I attempted to make chocolate chip muffins. I've never made muffins before - not the American kind that is supposed to fluff up and be big and tasty. Albie got me a muffin pan for my birthday, so I figured what the heck, I'm home by myself and the house is clean, let's give those muffins a shot!

First of all, it annoys me that all American recipes are written in "2 1/4 cups" and such, not because I'd rather like it in deciliters (I really would), but because all measuring cups I own say 1 cup, 1/2 cup, or 1/3 and 2/3. There are no quarters, yet all recipes call for quarters. I guess you just have to guess by splitting the halfs in half! However, it's not very exact.

I finally got past the stupid numbers and had mixed all my ingredients when I realized everything was as thick as cookie dough. Is this normal? I checked the recipe. It said "divide the batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups." Hm. That didn't tell me much. Divide it how?

Now it would have been helpful if the recipe said "divide with a spoon" or "pour batter into cups" so I would know if it was supposed to be closer to dough or closer to pancake batter. I had to resort to another muffin recipe to see if, perhaps, the first one had a mistake in it.

Nope, about the same amount of liquids vs. dry stuff in that one too. When I couldn't even stir the batter because it was so thick, I figured something must be wrong. I poured in a bunch more heavy cream, then I melted some more butter. I mixed until the consistency became what I deemed appropriate. I still had to spoon the "batter" into the cups though, and I still have no idea if this is normal...

Muffins - or whatever they turn out to be - are in the oven now. Update will follow on the results. That is, if the kitchen is still there when I get back downstairs.

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UPDATE: I am eating one of the muffins right now. It tastes alright, althought it is slightly greasy and buttery. Perhaps next time I'll try to actually follow the recipe and won't assume anything is wrong with it. It just seemed way to odd to call something that thick and heavy "batter."