:Prof Le

The Muffler, Er,
Muffin Man

,tiegan Swoyer
Special to The A p pleTree

hen Michele Rubenstein
asks: "Have you seen
the muffin man?" she's
probably looking for her husband,
Steve.
The 30-year-old Ann Arbor resi-
dent often can be found in his
/kitchen, poring over cookbooks or
scribbling down notes for an
ncoming baking competition. His
latest winning concoction, cappuc-
cino chip muffins, made it all the
way to the finals at the AAA
Living-Zehnder's of
Frankenmuth Annual Baking contest.
"There were hundreds of entries
for that contest so I was really sur-
,Osed when they called me," says
/-Ri;benstein, one of 20 muffin afi- •
cionado finalists from a pool of
700 entries.
>Rubenstein and his wife, who
works at the Arbor Hospice in Ann
Arbor, each submitted a muffin
entry. Michele's was a pound-cake
muffin recipe, and although her
/recipe didn't make it to the finals,
the pair enjoyed creating, testing
and sampling their work.
When his nose isn't in a cook-
/book, Rubenstein, a project engi-
neer, designs mufflers for Tenneco
Automotive in Jackson. He's as inter-
ested in how components work in
/-1-ne muffler industry as he is in how
ingredients merge in a mixing
bowl.
Rubenstein stresses a few, funda-
>mental rules when making muffins.
"The key thing is to mix your dry
ingredients first, separately. And
then mix the wet ingredients," he
,
explains. Stir the two together to
combine them, but don't over mix
them. So many people make the

"

mistake of over mixing their muffin
batter."
The muffin man likes to devise
recipe variations to create low-fat
baked goods. "Applesauce or
prune paste are great substitutes for
butter," he says. "But it's always a
matter of taste. Sometimes I've done
lowfat and the muffin is too
spongy...not to my taste." Before
moving to Michigan, the couple
lived in Wisconsin. While doing
some engineering consulting work,
Rubenstein worked as a baker in a
Madison coffee shop where he cre-
ated muffins, cookies, cakes and
more. At home in Ann Arbor, he
likes to make quick breads, like
banana, and "any sort of cookie."
Does the cooking
bug run in his fami-
ly? Probably, says
Rubenstein, who
says his mother
makes a mean
kugel for Pesach
and wonderful
hamantashen.
Rubenstein's dis-
criminating palate
also knows a good
cake when he tastes
one. So when Michele's birthday
rolls around, you can be sure she's
blowing out candles atop one of
her husband's special concoctions.
"And," Rubenstein says, "they're
always from scratch."
The 1997 bakeoff first-place win-
ner was Donna Costello of Clinton
Township for her triple orange-berry
muffin recipe. The 1998 AAA
Michigan Living magazine-
Zehnder's of Frankenmuth bakeoff
will feature coffeecakes.
"I'm thinking about that already,"
Rubenstein says.

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