I then explained the art of muffin baking in adult education courses. The biggest challenge was always to make the ladies understand that you stir the muffin batter only very briefly. Even today, I still have to slow down the German muffin fans when it comes to stirring. Because the golden rule is: the less the batter is stirred, the fluffier and moister the muffins will be. The women have also learned with me that the oven must always be hot for muffins, so that they go up in height and not in width. Bookstores also invite me to a book signing every now and then. Here’s how I traveled to Switzerland, our neighboring country. “The Swiss love sponge cakes of all kinds,” the purchasing manager of the largest bookstore in Zurich explained to me. That was the explanation why my first GU book, Muffins leicht gemacht (Muffins Made Easy), was one of the best-selling nonfiction books, reaching No. 3 on the bestseller list in September 1997.
