couple of questions about making a muffin (first time)

The recipe looks sound for the average palate.  The ingredients are not expensive, save berries out of season, but even frozen or substitutes can be switched out.  Muffin recipes are rather flexible but you can have the best recipe in the world and still come out with little bricks if you don't follow basic mixing instructions not included above.

Muffins are a "quick bread" and rely on the chemical reaction between the ingredients to raise the mixture quickly.  Soda will react immediately while mixing and baking powder will react with the heat in the oven.  Yogurt is low acid and a milk product for a soft crumb.  

Basics to mixing is to combine or sift the dry ingredients well especially soda or baking powder to avoid lumps of it in the muffin.  Then add the combined wet ingredients and quickly stir just until almost all flour is wet to avoid large pockets of dry flour.  Avoid over mixing. No gluten development desired, it makes for tough muffins.  Use two spoons to roughly fill (3/4 full) greased and floured tins or use paper lined tins as quickly as possible and place in a preheated oven.

My suggestion would be to just make the recipe. Taste the product and report back for suggestions if you want help to tweak it.  After the first muffin or two you will know if you like the recipe or not.  Then adjust for less salt, melted butter instead of oil, etc.  

If you want to get serious about tweaking, a metric recipe and a scale is more precise than volume/cup measurements.  There are many uses for baking soda, it can be used up fast and efficiently if need be.  

Hope some of this info helps.  

Mini Oven is absolutely correct, you certainly need to try it out and tweak from there.  Constant learning and tweaking is a baker's life.

A note on baking powder and baking soda:

Baking soda is an alkaline salt that reacts with an acid or acids, bubbling up to give lift to our modern baked goods.  Think about the classic volcano experiment in middle school: baking soda and vinegar (acid) = bubbily lava.

However, after baking soda was introduced, we decided to make life even easier and more convenient by inventing baking powder, which has both elements already: the alkaline salt and a powdery acid that will react no matter what the ingredients are.  Most baking powders are also double-acting, meaning they react upon being dissolved in batter first, but also again when heat is applied in the oven.

Modern bakers who swear by the ease of using baking soda and baking powder do like to use both and also play around with their ratios.  For instance, using more or less baking soda when making a recipe with buttermilk will either neutralize the flavor entirely or bring out a little of the tang and sourness in the final result.

The basic recipe in your post is very low acid, which is why only baking powder was used as the leavening agent.

Hope this helps!  I also have a standard muffin recipe that I use that incorporates granulated sugar, brown sugar, and honey as sweeteners.  I can post that if you would like.

Sincerely,

Michael Brock

P.S. - Do not overmix the batter, and I always, and I mean always, bake my muffins at a high temperature for 5-7 minutes at 425 degrees, then lower to 350 degrees for the rest of baking.  This poofs up the batter quickly, giving you mountainous muffin tops.

Funny that I should read this right now, as I'm baking both bread (Hamelman's Hazelnut & Fig with Rosemary and Fennel Seeds) and muffins. I like to make muffins when I have bits of low- or no-gluten flours around, because you don't want gluten development in muffins (as Mini says, makes them tough). So a good basic recipe like the one you have is something to start with, then you can do things like:

• Change up the flour mix. Today's recipe called for AP flour (2 1/4 cups), so I used 1 cup of AP, about 3/4 cup of a medium extraction organic wheat flour I had left, some sprouted wheat flour and a bit of coarse Kamut flour. You can use buckwheat and other gluten-free flours or whatever you have to hand
• Change up the fat. Today I used melted butter, but I'm just as likely to use grapeseed oil or coconut oil
• Change up the sugar. Today's recipe called for 1 cup of granulated sugar - too sweet for me. I reduced it to 3/4 cup and that was 1/2 cup brown sugar (I like the molasses flavour) and 1/4 cup granulated. Note that the sugar not only changes the flavour, but reducing it too much will actually change the texture of your muffins, so play around with that. Same with cookies
• Change up the dairy - today I used home made kefir because I always have that around and it provides the acid required to activate the baking soda. You can use regular milk with added lemon juice too (mix about a tablespoon of lemon juice into a cup of milk and let it sit until slightly curdled), or milk and yogurt, or buttermilk (not the stuff left over from making butter, but the commercial cultured stuff), or even sourdough starter (for the acid). I've used coconut milk too, for flavour and tenderness (but not acid)
• You've already heard about the baking soda / baking powder thing. Just make sure you use an acidic ingredient if you are using baking soda
• Change up the fruit. Today I'm using chopped rhubarb because I have a ton of it in the garden. I'll use all kinds of dried fruits, or fresh / frozen fruits. I personally don't like nuts in baked goods much, so don't add them. I'll also use pureed fruits (bananas, apple or pear sauce, etc.). If you do this you might need to adjust the amount of flour / liquid to get the texture right. Also, some fruits will affect the sweetness (like bananas) or the acid a bit.

In other words, once you have the basic recipe down pat, muffins are a terrific way to use up all kinds of stuff in the pantry / fridge / garden! Have fun... :)

Ah the memories!  I love puto. Do you have dry or rainy season right now?  Exposing the flour to relative humidity can make the liquids vary from season to season.  Remember to record how you changed the liquids and date it.

 With the next batch of muffins, make sure all the liquid needed goes in right away in the beginning.  Stirring with a fork is often helpful.  If you like pandan flavour, be sure to measure the flavoring as part of the liquids.  You can also burry a lump of palm sugar inside each muffin just before baking if desired.  It will melt just as it does in puto if you want to flavour in that direction, just an idea.  Cut up fruit or colorful jellies, soft or shredded coconut is also possible instead of berries.  Cut up fresh jackfruit, oooh, would love to try that!

First thing, the muffins need to be baked hotter and/or longer.  The outside is too pale and looking like it was steamed and not baked.  I don't see any browning at all and this will drastically affect the flavour.  Get the oven hotter.  Make sure your gas oven is set up for the type of gas you are using.  You may also find the oven gas burner may need maintenance and cleaning for a steady burn especially if the oven has been in use for many years. 

You can also use coconut milk if yogurt is hard to finder tastes too tart.