Apple Cinnamon Breakfast Muffins

Every week we get a vege box from the Organic Collective and most weeks Im stuck trying to find a use for something... usually the fruit, or a way to hide the broccoli so my bf will eat it. This time, Ive needed to use up apples. Normally I take them to school and eat them but we got alot this time, and since S never eats fruit unless its been dessert-ified, I had to figure something out.

I stumbled upon this recipe for apple cinnamon breakfast muffins, from Nigella Lawsons book, Kitchen. I havent heard rave reviews about this book, in fact, quite mixed, but regardless, these muffins looked great. Heres the recipe.

Ingredients

2 apples (peeled, cored and chopped into 1cm pieces)

250 g spelt flour (I used 00 flour, it was all I had)

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

125 g brown sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

125 ml honey

60 ml plain fat-free yogurt (just realised I used full fat greek yoghurt, oops!)

60 ml vegetable oil

65 ml applesauce

2 eggs

75 g natural almonds, roughly chopped


Method

1) Preheat oven to 150C (300F), line 12 tin muffin tin with paper liners.

2) Measure the flour, baking powder and 1 teaspoons of the ground cinnamon into a bowl.

3) Whisk together 125g brown sugar, honey, yogurt, veg. oil and eggs in another bowl.

4) Use the chopped almonds and add 1/2 of them to the flour mix, put the leftover almonds into a small bowl and add the 1 teaspoons of cinnamon and the 4 teaspoons of brown sugar.

5) Fold wet ingredients into the dry, add apples but just stir to combine. Spoon into the muffin cups, then add some of that topping you made for each muffin

6) Bake about 20min or until finished, then let stand in tin for 10 min before placing them onto a cooling rack.

These muffins looked great before I put them in the oven, the batter tasted good too, though I could tell this was going to be a sweet parcel of apple cinnamon goodness!
Muffin batter with topping, just before going into an oven that wasnt hot enough!

I put them in the oven, eagerly anticipating the outcome! After the specified 20mins, I found they werent nearly cooked, however had risen enough to be coming over the tops of the tray, but had not yet cooked through enough to be able to stand up. So I had some pretty flat looking muffins that were all touching! WTF?!

I turned the oven up and cooked them for another 15 minutes. After a while I could smell the sweet and spicy aromas of the muffins wafting through the house. THAT was what was meant to happen... I've now decided that this house has a crap oven, and I've found that things have needed to be baked alot longer than I expected. There is a loose sheet of metal over the door that slides out everytime you open the oven, and I think this is causing the oven to loose a significant amount of heat... Meaning I have to turn the oven up higher than I expect to get the temperature I need. Ill be buying an oven thermometer someday soon to ensure Im getting what I need out of this clapped out piece of rental kitchenware.


In any case, the muffins turned out perfectly edible, just not as aesthetically pleasing as Id like. The recipe called for fat free yoghurt and I used full fat... Just guessing, without having tried the no fat yoghurt, this has resulted in a fabulously moist muffin. It feels quite sinful, but in actuality its not THAT bad in the fat dept. The diabetics will keel over and die though. The sugar is noticable, just by looking at the sticky topping. It is a sweet muffin, not unlike a sticky date pudding, due to the brown sugar, and honey being used rather than white sugar. It also has a beautiful deep rich brown colour that is screaming out for a dollop of cream.

They really arent much of a muffin... This is more of a cupcake, in my opinion. Its not especially healthy, and is very sweet and moist which I dont find in many muffins... But hey its a great use of apples! Would be interesting to see how these go with pear.

I will likely make these again, however I wouldnt be so heavy handed with the honey. I didnt measure it that well... The recipe I used said I should add 5/8ths of a cup of it, and I wasnt about to measure out 125ml of it because I dont have a small enough measuring cup. So I guesstimated and added less than a cup. Next time, Ill go easy on the sweetners (possibly add less of the brown sugar), and use fat free yoghurt.

Try them though, for a healthier (slightly) version of a sticky date pudding! They would be great with a bit of ginger in them too, as they have that gingerbready vibe going on already...