Warm Kitchen, Warm Hearts: apple

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Apple Cinnamon Muffins!

So this past weekend I was feeling antsy - it had snowed (!) before Halloween (!!) in Philadelphia (!!!) so I had a bit of cabin fever and decided I wanted to bake something. I carved my pumpkin, hoping to use its guts to make something delicious, until Martha Stewart luckily told me that would be a bad idea.

Thanks Martha!

Since I couldn't use my pumpkin, I looked around for something else to use, and discovered a pair of Crispin apples that hadn't been used yet, along with a red delicious that had seen better days. I googled "Apple Muffin", et voila! This delicious recipe from King Arthur Flour!

Now, my mama is a big fan of King Arthur. In fact, she refuses to use any flour BUT King Arthur in her kitchen. And every time we get one of their catalogs in, I sit and drool at all of their fun little tools and delicious-looking recipes. So it was only appropriate that I should use one of their recipes to scratch my baking itch!

Nom nom nom...

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

(adapted from King Arthur Flour recipe)

makes 24 full muffins

Ingredients

2 c. 100% Whole Wheat Flour

2 c. 100% White Whole Wheat Flour (King Arthur calls for 100% WHITE whole wheat flour, and then all-purpose flour. Since we only ever buy white whole wheat, and use it as all-purpose, these muffins have extra fiber. They still taste delish though, so I'm making that part of the recipe! But all-purpose works fine here!)

2 tsp. Baking Soda

2 tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 tsp. Salt

3 tbsp. Cinnamon (more than King Arthur calls for, but I'm a big fan of cinnamon, so use to taste!)

1 c. Butter (2 sticks) room temperature

1 c. Granulated Sugar

1 c. Dark Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs, lightly beaten (I pretty much just broke the yolks and stirred a little until the yellow leaked out.)

2 c. Buttermilk (I just used sour milk - pour 1/8 c. white vinegar into 1 7/8 c. 2% milk, and let it sit for 5 minutes -- it works the same!)

3 Large Apples, peeled, cored, and chopped (haphazardly, if you're me!)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 450°F. Prep your muffin tins -- you can just throw some cupcake liners in them, but if you're out of them, or just lazy (like me!) you can grease and flour them. (And, if you're SUPER lazy like me, just buy a "baking" spray that has the flour and grease all in the one can for you. Easy Peasy!)

In a medium bowl, mix together your 2 flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Make sure you stir them super well so the cinnamon get evenly dispersed throughout!

In a large bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer. Add the white sugar, and 1/2 cup of the dark brown sugar. Set the rest of the brown sugar aside for the end. Beat the butter and sugars until they're nice and fluffy. Mine didn't get fluffy, exactly, it more like finally just mixed together, which I figured was good enough.

Add the eggs, and mix until semi-combined. (You can mix all day and that butter and eggs still won't blend totally.) Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, and give it one more quick mix to incorporate the scraped additions.

Add the buttermilk (sour milk) slowly, on the lowest possible setting. According to King Arthur (whom I will continue to refer to as if he were a real person) if you over-mix in this step, you run the risk of curdling your mixture. I didn't really see any curdling with my sour milk, so maybe just buttermilk curdles. Anyway, if that kind of stuff makes you nervous, you can mix equal parts of the buttermilk and flour mixture in, alternating between the two.

Either way, stir the dry ingredients in on low, and then turn off the mixer. Using a spatula, gently fold the apples into the batter. (This is done exactly like it sounds. Fauna actually did it right - but DEFINITELY use the spatula!)

Using a spoon, scoop batter into each of the 24 cups, and then sprinkle the rest of the dark brown sugar on top. Bake for 10 minutes, then lower oven temperature to 400 and bake for another 10.

Let them cool, and then dig in!

Bon appétit!

Next up: Chocolate Chip Banana-Wheat Bread

Monday, November 23, 2009

Iron Cupcake: Earth - Apple!

So, it's already that time again! Time for my Iron Cupcake: Earth submission... I can't believe November's already almost over! Really, where does the time go??

Anyway, I don't quite want to let go of Fall yet, (I have a thing about winter. If it's gonna be that cold, the least it can do is snow.) so I was excited to see that this month's ingredient was apples!

But, in keeping with the "not letting go of the seasons" theme, I decided to make a cupcake based on a dessert that is usually served in July....

APPLE PIE!

So, here is my adaptation of an apple pie cupcake.

Recipe adapted from the New Best Recipe Cookbook

1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
8 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 c. sour cream
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 c. unsweetened applesauce (this was my addition because A, I didn't have any eggs. whoops. and B, I wanted to add some more apple flavor to the cupcakes!)
1 3/4 tsp. cinnamon (also my addition, to give it more of an "apple pie" taste)

Preheat your oven to 350. If it's like ours, you might have to preheat it before you even pull the ingredients out of the cabinets, because it takes forever to preheat. While it's heating, whisk together (or throw in your stand mixer) flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until well blended. Add in the butter (I cut it into chunks as I tossed it in to help it stir in better), sour cream, vanilla, and apple sauce, and mix well, pausing to scrape down the sides every once in a while. Then throw in the cinnamon and mix a few seconds more until it's evenly distributed. Spoon batter into 12 cup baking pan lined with cupcake cups, and pop into the oven for about 20-22 minutes.

When the cupcakes are done, they won't have a rounded top, because the eggs usually provide that estra bit of fluff that the applesauce obviousl doesn't. But that's okay, just remember to tip them out of the pan almost immediately, so you don't end up with sticky and torn edges, like I did.

It was okay though, they still tasted delicious, and were super moist!

Now you can do one of two things. You can let them sit, which is what I did (I baked them the night before a dinner) or you can continue making them while they're still warm, which I think would probably be delicious.

Heat up some yummy pre-made apple pie filling (I used a sugarless one that was still amazingly delicious). You may need to cut the larger chunks up into smaller pieces. I just kind of chopped haphazardly around the bowl to make them a bit easier to work with.

Then, spoon the filling over each cupcake,

And add the pie crust top! (I bought premade, rolled pie crust at the super market. I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the crusts, and then baked them for about 10 minutes at 450.)