The Mystery of the Weird Muffin!

I just don't get it!

I decided to have a go at the Vanilla Jam Muffins, a recipe from which I got off some TV cooking show. (Yes, I'm obviously more the TV addict than the cooking enthusiast!)

All the ingredients. The correct ingredients and not weird substitutes. Check.
The printed recipe in front of me, in bold print. Check.
An oven. Check.
Enthusiasm at finally perhaps being able to make decent muffins. Double check.

I got all the ingredients, the right ingredients. I followed them step by step. I even pre-heated the oven like the recipe asked me to do instead of dumping the muffin tray into a un-pre-heated oven. But the muffins still came out all weird. In fact, they turned out weirder than my not following a recipe.

I measure, I sift, I mix, I put the gooey mush into little cute muffin cups in a muffin tray. I pre-heat ovens and use oven mitts with wee little daisies on them. I even let the muffins 'rest' for 15 minutes after taking them out of the oven for goodness sakes!!

I mean, what more does the muffin want from me?! I should go on and knees and kowtow to it right after I place it in the oven, so it'll come out all nice and fluffy and yummy for me, instead of all weird?! These muffin things are seriously demanding! I'm not sure I'm ready for a muffin committment at this point in time. I'm just not ready!

That's it! No more following recipes for me. Oh rather, no more attempts at making muffins.

This time round, the muffins came out all gooey and sticky because of the jam fillings I was suppose to add. The last time, the muffins came out like cookies, in paper cups. Not too bad tasting, but still, they were suppose to be muffins, not cookies!

What's it going to take just for my muffins to turn out un-weird?! After all, these are suppose to be the simpliest things to make; it's not suppose to be that hard!

Forget it, I think I'll just go make cookies instead. The flat ones, and not round ones in paper-cups.