Cleaning up is always the most dreaded part of baking, am I right or am I right? And as if cleaning a regular pan isn’t annoying enough – as a cupcake/muffin baker, we must clean pans, with holes!
If you’re struggling to clean your muffin pan, I feel you deeply. Don’t worry though because it doesn’t have to be as annoying and time-consuming as you might think – not if you follow these hacks. All you’ll need is some dishwashing soap, dryer sheet, or baking soda.
I’m Angie, I’m a self-taught baker who’s been baking for over 10 years. I specialize in baking cupcakes, or as I like to call them – muffins that believe in miracles. In this article, I’m going to show you three hacks that will miraculously clean your muffin tins.
Time to get our hands dirty!
Contents
1. Dishwashing Soap + Water
If your muffin pan is quite new and in decent condition, cleaning it should really be a breeze. All you’ll need is what you’ll need to clean any dish – some dishwashing soap, and water.
Squirt out a little bit of soap on your wet sponge (Assuming you have one…?) and apply it all over your pan in a gentle circular motion. You don’t need to be too generous with the soap, a little goes a long way. Plus, it should be quite effortless and any grease should come right off.
If however, the muffins you baked were a little extra greasy, you can always fill your sink with water and a few squirts of dishwashing soap. Your muffin pan’s been through fire for you (quite literally), give it some chill time in the bubble bath and unwind. By the time it looks like it’s in a better mood, rinse off the soap water and you’ll have yourself a clean muffin tin.
Jokes aside, this should really only take an hour or two. Overnight at max. Do not forget about your precious pan.
2. Dryer Sheet
Yes, you read that right. Dryer sheet – the ones you toss in your dryer!
An unexpected choice but let me tell you, it works like magic. All you need is a sink filled with warm water with a piece of dryer sheet in it. Toss this baby in and let it soak away all the gunk in all those crevices. You hardly have to lift a finger.
I lied, you do. You do have to place your pan in the sink, just no scrubbing involved 🙂
Now I know that as wonderful as this works, this simple solution just doesn’t satisfy your need to know, so here’s the logic behind it. Dryer sheets are heavily coated in softening agents. These ingredients will soften the stubborn gunk and any grease on your possibly burnt pan and lift them effortlessly. Hence why this works.
That said, make sure you rinse all that off. Let’s stay away from eating any dryer sheets alright?
3. Baking Soda + Water
Oh baking soda. Are you surprised? Because I sure am not.
As most of us know, baking soda is a strong base. This makes the ingredient super helpful when it comes to dissolving grease, gunk, and any stickiness we don’t want.
You can mix one quart of water with two tablespoons of baking soda. You can pour this mixture into the holes, and let it soak to loosen the rust and grease before rinsing and wiping it off. Or, you could get your scrub and scrub your pan with this liquid. Scrub for long enough and it’ll take away even the stubbornest of rust.
Rusted Muffin Pan?
And…You’re here because all that has failed. I’m sorry you’ve got a rusty muffin pan. It’s the worst. But it isn’t anything we can’t fix!
If you’ve tried all the above ways and are still having trouble getting your muffin pan clean, it might not be gunk or grease you’ve gotten yourself into, but rust.
Rusted muffin pans, or for that matter rusted “anything” – is no good. Don’t worry though, I’ve written all about it in my article How to Remove Rust from Baking Pans. Click and you’ll find 4 simple solutions to your problem! They work perfectly for muffin pans too.
FAQs
Here are my answers to some commonly asked questions related to our topic. Find your answer below.
How do you keep muffin pans from sticking?
Using a baking spray or parchment cupcake liners will prevent your muffins from sticking to the pan. If you don’t have either, you can also brush each muffin hole with a thin layer of butter or any oil to prevent sticking.
How do you get dried eggs out of muffin tins?
Getting dried eggs out of muffin tins is easy. There are five simple ways you can do it. Check it out.
How do you get muffins unstuck?
So your muffins got stuck to the pan. Besides letting it cool and praying that they loosen themselves, the next best thing is probably to run a straight knife along the sides. You do still want to wait till they’re cooled though, otherwise, you’ll risk damaging your hot muffins.
Final Thoughts
You see? It’s not that hard, is it? Cleaning a muffin pan can be as easy or as complicated, as quick or as time-consuming as you make it. Next time you need to clean a pan, try one of these tricks!
What was your most recent stubborn muffin pan situation that you encountered? How did you manage to fix it? Let us know in the comments below!
About Angie