Eric Jorgensen wrote:
> My thought was that the crust difference could be due to flour
measuring
> differences and over-mixing.
>
> too much or too little flour will obviously affect the texture. The
> other point - traditionally when making american muffins, the flour and dry
> leavening agents are mixed fully and then the rest of it is just sort of
> dumped together into a lumpy mix. This can result in a crusty texture on
> the top.

Eric gets the prize for the closest answer without going over!

I made another batch this a.m. (yup, at 4:00 am...) and the end result
was "pretty close to the same" as the innkeeper's muffins as my husband
put it.

I changed a few things in my technique:
- I spooned the flour into the measuring cup instead of scooping the
flour with the m. cup
- I added the fruit and chocolate to the dry mix first
- I added the wet ingredients last, mixing only until the liquid was
incorporated into the dry ingredients
- I also added a pinch of salt - don't know if that made a difference.

I had also increased the preheating temp of my oven to 400F and when I
was ready to put the muffin tins in, I decreased the temp to the
recipe's baking temp. I read that tip here.

The muffins were nicely browned and crusty on the exterior and fluffy on
the inside. What a huge difference from my first anemic batch of muffins.

I think the flour measuring and mixing made the biggest difference. Not
sure if anything else did, but I won't be changing anything the next
time I make these.

Thanks all!

N.