This is the recipe for the “applesauce cupcakes” that Benji love/hated earlier this week.
Apple Crisp Muffins
1 1/4 C. flour
3/4 C. quick-cooking oats
1/2 C. brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 C. milk
3/4 C. applesauce
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1.50 C. peeled, finely diced apples (2 medium-sized apples; peeling optional)
Heat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease a muffin pan. Try not to think about how two hours from now, you’ll be laboriously scrubbing out that very same pan.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
In a separate, smaller bowl, whisk together milk, applesauce, egg, oil, and vanilla.
Stir milk mixture into flour mixture just until moistened. Stir in diced apples. Fill medium muffin cups 75% full (mine actually ended up over 100% full — maybe my muffin size is slightly smaller than standard?) or fill mini-muffins cups to the top.
Topping
1/3 C. quick-cooking oats
1/4 C. flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
Combine topping ingredients until crumbly. Double if you want to actually have enough to cover all the muffins as generously as your lucky taste-testers would actually like. Everyone knows the top of the muffin is the best part. Sprinkle over muffins.
Bake 16 – 18 minutes for medium muffins, 10 – 12 minutes for mini-muffins; or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Mine actually seemed undercooked at 18 minutes, but I took them out because they were getting towards dark golden around the edges. They finished cooking and are wonderful despite seeming kind of gooey when I pulled them out. Don’t leave them in longer! They’ll just dry out, and who wants a dry muffin?
Now, what this recipe doesn’t tell you is whether to leave the muffins in the pan to cool, or take them out to prevent over-cooking. So far I’ve taken them out, but this results in mangled muffins since fresh from the oven they’re mighty soft and unwilling to be readily extracted. Maybe next time I’ll try letting them cool in there. If you try it, let me know how it goes.
Yields 12 “medium” muffins or 36 mini-muffins.
Recipe from pg 39, Best of the Best from Washington Cookbook: Selected Recipes from Washington’s Favorite Cooks, edited by Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley, 2002.