Apple Muffins II

These are yummy!! The first time I made them was 8 years ago (you’ve got to be kidding me :/) and I commented “Best apple muffin recipe so far” haha! guess I was testing quite a few back then.  Anyway, just a few changes on my part.  They are touted as being “healthy” but ahem, maybe because of the whole wheat flour? I don’t know but just make them, you will like them too.

I did not adhere to her mixing directions because I always make quick bread (a muffin is classified as this) by mixing the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients.  To me, this makes the best textured muffin.  I never have whole wheat pastry flour on hand, so I substituted King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour.  I also doubled the topping and the apples.  This made it the best apple muffin.

So this is very interesting to me.  When I was much younger, and I mean living with my parents younger, Saco Pantry Cultured Buttermilk was a staple in our household because either fresh buttermilk was too difficult to get or it cost too much money at the time, I don’t know.  But it is now coming back as THE thing to use.  So I decided to try it again.  I cannot tell the difference between fresh and the dry in the end product.  So I am putting it in my list of ingredients as a choice.  Once it’s opened the dry buttermilk must be stored in the refrigerator just like the liquid.  But it lasts virtually forever, so you might want to give it a try.

Apple Muffins by Ellie Krieger, Food Network 2008

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs

1 cup unsweetened (natural) applesauce

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup buttermilk ***

2 Golden Delicious apples

Topping:

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 teaspoon cinnamon

***OR you can use Saco Pantry Cultured Buttermilk (dry):  3 tablespoons of dry buttermilk, 3/4 cups water.  Add dry buttermilk to dry ingredients, add water to liquid ingredients.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with canola oil spray and set aside.

In a small bowl mix together the topping:  brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon.  If the pecans are not small enough, break them up into ~1/4 inch pieces.

Peel, core and cut the apples into 1/4 inch pieces.  Set aside.  See the picture below, it will help in cutting them into even pieces.

In a very large bowl, place the dry ingredients:  brown sugar, the 2 flours, baking soda, and salt.  Stir together with a whisk, breaking up any large pieces of brown sugar with your fingers.  Then add the apple pieces, lightly tossing them with the dry ingredients until evenly dispersed.

Put the liquid ingredients, vegetable oil, eggs, applesauce, vanilla and buttermilk, into a medium bowl and whisk together.

Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients, gently mixing until just incorporated.  Do not over mix.

Put batter evenly into muffin pan and sprinkle each muffin  with ~1 tablespoon of topping.  Place in oven and bake for about 25 minutes.

Place muffins on a cooling rack and cool for about an hour.  Gently slide a knife or small metal spatula, under the top that has cooked on top of the muffin pan.  Then, using the knife or spatula,  releasing the muffin.  Remove and place on cooling rack

Because of the extra apple, the muffins will spill over the top a bit when they are baking.  If you don’t like this (I like that part, because it’s a bit crispy, crunchy) you can either make the muffins with just one apple or place the extra batter into a few more muffins tins.

This is the dry buttermilk:

the applesauce.  I love the individual containers (I know, a bit wasteful because of the packaging) because each containers is just slightly under a 1/2 cup and I don’t have a sticky jar of applesauce in my refrigerator that gets moldy and then I have to throw it out.

muffin pan prepped:

take a quarter of peeled, cored apple, and slice horizontally into 3 sections:

slice the apple vertically into 1/4 inch slices:

then cut through apple into nice 1/4 inch pieces:

topping:

liquid and dry ingredients and then mix together:

fill muffins tins then sprinkle with topping:

out of the oven :

removed and onto the cooling rack:

yum!