I preface them as “mostly apple” because the only thing holding these chunky pieces of apples is muffin batter.  I’ve posted about these before but I made a couple of changes myself this time around. It was also my third time making them so hopefully the third time is clearly a charm. They’re just that good!  I followed Christy’s recipe on The Girl Who Ate Everything blog.

Here is her recipe below:

Yields 18 muffins

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar (I cut back to 1 cup)
• 2 eggs (leave at room temperature)
• 1 cup of oil
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla
• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 2-3 cups of peeled, cored, and diced apples (2 large or 3 medium sized apples should be enough)
• Brown sugar for topping

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin tin with paper liners
2. Cream sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla; mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Sift if desired.
4. Add whole portion of dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Mix until just combined. Do not overmix!
5. Fold diced apples into batter with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon.
6. Using an ice cream scoop or large spoons, fill paper liners 3/4 full.  I was pretty generous with the scoops and the muffins came out beautifully.
7. Sprinkle with brown sugar.
8. Bake for 20-22 minutes. Do not check muffins halfway to turn the pans around or to check how much they’ve risen! They will definitely sink.  Be patient and let it bake for at least 20 minutes, then add on another minute or two if you want them to be more golden brown.

So for my changes in Christy’s recipe…

Treat the batter delicately! Over mixing the batter will yield a tougher muffin.  Too much air is not a good thing.  Keeping the apple chunks slightly larger might prevent the muffin from being soggy.  It might depend on the apple too.  I used Red Delicious and Gala apples.  Other food bloggers might suggest Granny Smiths for a more tart muffin.

And of course, use less sugar!  This recipe called for a whopping 2 cups of sugar and more to sprinkle on.  Apples are naturally sweet if you’ve picked ripe ones.  I cut the sugar by half in the batter and barely added any on top of the muffins and they came out fine.

I think if I were to make these again, I’d substitute for half wheat and half all purpose flour or incorporate some rolled oats for a healthier muffin.  All in all, these muffins came out great!  Not too sweet and great with a cup of coffee or tea in the morning.  Or a mid-afternoon snack. Your call!  

I get so giddy whenever I see figs at the store.

beautifulpicturesofhealthyfood:

Figs with custard sauce: a simple and delicious dessert…RECIPE

I would try these with squash or zucchini too!

ryori-doga:

ASPARAGUS BAKED EGGS (by Claire Thomas)

peegaw:

This cake goes out to Rubberbend (and a slice goes to YourstrulyJustin who answered the MENSA question correctly) who said that I should try out this recipe because he strongly feels, and I quote, that “it’s the bomb”.

I’ve always evaded making cheesecakes because A. I’ve…