It's apple season! I love having apples on hand because they store in my crisper longer than, say, berries. I can toss them in smoothies, side dishes, or just slice them up with peanut butter for a snack.
I used to be very 'meh' about apples, thinking they mostly tasted the same, until I got my first CSA farm share apples from the Shenandoah valley. Whoa! What a taste revelation! The best variety was Larry (I am not making this up) and I'd pay good money to bite into a Larry apple again. One of the things I miss the most about that first farm share.
These muffins I kind of threw together for an after school snack while I was gathering ingredients for dinner and doing laundry and plotting out the afternoon drive schedule and a bunch of other things.
So I forgot the sugar.
I didn't even notice until I bit into one, and thought 'hey, this isn't really sweet' but when my daughter grabbed the wild violet jelly and I grabbed the apple butter to slather on top, I didn't miss it at all. I mean, with a shake of cinnamon sugar on top, and apple cider for the liquid, they are sweet enough. If you are a person watching your sugar intake-try these! If you're not, try them with jam or apple butter.
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| Apple cores saved for the composting pigs! |
Apple Cider Forgot-The-Sugar Muffins
1 cup (240 ml) apple cider
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup (60 ml) vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup apple (1 small-to-medium apple--Gala for me--cored and chopped)
cinnamon sugar (optional)
Mix cider and oats in a large bowl and set aside for up to 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a standard muffin pan with cooking spray. Add egg and oil to the bowl. Mix thoroughly. Add dry ingredients all at once, stir well. Stir in apples. Fill muffin cups ⅔ full**. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over top of each cup, if desired. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven, cool in pan a few minutes then finish on a cooling rack. Delicious warm with apple butter-and a cup of cider!
**My scoop holds 3 Tablespoons (1 ½ ounces) by volume, though the muffin batter is mounded in the scoop so I'm pretty sure I'm putting a good 3 ½ to 4 Tablespoons into each muffin well. The muffin wells in my regular muffin pans each hold 3 ounces by volume.
i love anything with apples too - apples are the shiznat! all i wanna do right now is curl up with a basket of your muffins and slather warm butter all over them :)
ReplyDeletep.s. haha - you ate larry!
Kristy,
DeleteI'm so in muffin mode now--bringing them for every occasion. I cannot post a weekly muffin recipe in addition to a weekly pizza recipe, so I'm spacing them out. You'll be reading about beet & horseradish muffins in time for a savory Valentine meal!
Thanks!
Sometimes the best recipes are the ones we goofed on. I love apples and muffins so I'm going to have to make these. Thanks for the recipe.
ReplyDeleteMeghan,
DeleteI'm goofing a little to much lately--must learn to concentrate on one thing at the time in the kitchen.
At least it's all edible.
Thanks!
I like to go light on the sugar when I make muffins. They're supposed to be a snack, not dessert, right? A little jam and you're all set.
ReplyDeleteAnnemarie,
DeleteMuffins are breakfast, afterschool snack . . . you're right. Anything but dessert. And when I throw in chocolate chips, it's usually 1/4 cup of the mini chips for a dozen muffins, so I can live with that . . . excess.
And save my desserts for the good stuff!
Thanks!
Do your kids follow your blog? Mine do, so if I posted that I forgot the sugar, I would hear about it later...
ReplyDeleteLOL, they were sitting at the table with me when I took a bite out of the muffin and realized I'd forgotten the sugar! I think if my son had good enough grades that he could be on the internet for anything other than school, he'd be reading my blog. Alas, he has not found the motivation to get better grades so he could read the blog. My girl checks it now and again ;)
DeleteThanks!