LMM - Large Muffin Model

2024-07-10

Last fall I was in the mood to bake and asked my wife what she wanted. Her response was simply "pumpkin". This was wholly unhelpful, but convenient since we happened to have pumpkin puree in the house. Without much forethought, I asked ChatGPT:

What is something simple I can bake with pumpkin puree?

The response was the following recipe for pumpkin muffins:

Ingredients:

    1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
    1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
    1/4 teaspoon cloves
    1/4 teaspoon ginger
    1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
    1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
    2 large eggs
    1 cup pumpkin puree
    1/4 cup milk
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

    Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) and line a muffin tin with paper liners.
    In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger).

    In a separate large bowl, cream together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

    Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the pumpkin puree, milk, and vanilla extract.

    Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.
    Pour the batter into the muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full.

    Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
    Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

My wife hates nutmeg, so I asked for a substitute.

My wife doesn't like nutmeg.

You can substitute allspice for nutmeg in your pumpkin muffin recipe. Allspice has a warm and slightly spicy flavor that can work well in place of nutmeg. You can use the same quantity of allspice (1/2 teaspoon) as the recipe calls for nutmeg. This should give your muffins a slightly different but still delicious flavor.

But this wasn't enough. Maybe I could add some raisins?

Can I add raisins?

Certainly! Adding raisins to your pumpkin muffins can add a sweet and chewy element to the recipe. You can typically add around 1/2 to 3/4 cup of raisins to the batter when you mix in the other wet ingredients. Just fold them in gently to distribute them evenly throughout the batter. This addition will give your muffins a delightful texture and extra bursts of sweetness

Another issue is that I don't have any muffin liners. Does anyone actually have muffin liners sitting around the house? I guess the must, but it can't be too common.

I don't have any muffin liners.

If you don't have muffin liners, you can use cooking spray to grease the muffin pan instead. Here's how to do it: Spray a light coating of cooking oil or non-stick cooking spray into each muffin cup, making sure to coat the bottoms and sides.Use a paper towel or pastry brush to spread the oil evenly and remove any excess. This helps prevent your muffins from sticking to the pan. After greasing the pan, you can directly pour the muffin batter into the individual cups. Just keep in mind that without muffin liners, your muffins might have slightly different edges and may be a bit harder to remove from the pan, so be gentle when taking them out.

I made the muffins. And they were fine. Good, even. Nothing mind blowing about them, but a solid pumpkin muffin recipe overall.

Thoughts

I felt like this was a novel use for LLMs. At least at the time. I'm aware that it occasionally suggests you add glue to pizza¹, but with a little common sense it can be effective. To be fair, I have some knowledge and experience with baking. I used to bake quite frequently. I would have been able to spot any glaring issues. For some reason my gut tells me that LLMs will be better at generating baking recipes than cooking recipes. I don't know why I feel this way, but baking feels a bit more "structured" and formulaic than cooking. Perhaps that's just my bias.

Ownership

Who owns this recipe? Recipes are not copyrightable². But typically the composition of a recipe within an article, blog, or book is protected. Is this the same thing? Is the recipe's composition within this blog post copyrightable? I think so? It seems fairly similar to the Zarya of the Dawn incident. I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but I'm told this is a very grey area.

Closing

My ultimate question is, can I say this is my recipe? Technically, I think I can say whatever I want. But ethically I don't think I can. This is created by an amalgamation of likely tens of thousands of recipes for muffins and other baked goods filtered through an AI model that obscures their origins. So, I make no claim to this recipe. Make it, replicate it, share it, modify it, whatever you choose. Just think about the anonymous bakers that contributed to its generation.