Apple and Cinnamon Muffins

I recently bought a recipe book entitled Desserts au chocolat in Belgium. I was super excited to finally get a chance to make something from this book. Then I remembered that my brother and dad don't like chocolate. And my mom doesn't really eat sweets anymore at all. So my chocolate book is unfortunately out until I get tired of baking what everyone else wants or until I get back to school.

I decided to make some apple cinnamon muffins instead, which people will actually eat in my house. I got the recipe out of a cupcake book I've had for a couple years, but haven't made too much out of. The recipe is fairly easy to make. The only issue I had was in trying to get my mother's food processor to work to cut up the apples. I later realized the blade was not on...and felt like a total idiot. I ended up cutting the apples by hand so they were probably a little bigger than they should have been. I prefer crunchier things anyway, though, so the apple chunks didn't bother me.

I had my first one warm right out of the oven, along with some cookie dough ice cream :)

It was interesting that the recipe said it would make six muffins. I actually got 14 from the batter and they weren't especially small muffins either.



They were really good though...made me feel better about myself and my baking abilities after my failing angel food cake attempt over the weekend.



Here is the recipe:

Apple and Cinnamon Muffins from 500 Cupcakes by Fergal Connolly

Ingredients
2 3/4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 lightly beaten eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 small apples, peeled, cored, and finely diced

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease or put 12-16 paper baking cups into a muffin pan (depending on how big you want the cupcakes to be).

2. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon with a large wooden spoon or other appropriate baking apparatus. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, beat the oil, butter, eggs, and buttermilk with an electric mixer until well combined. Add the flour mixture and beat until almost fully combined. Stir in the apples, but make sure you don't overmix them.

4. Spoon the mixture into your muffin pan.

5. Bake for 20 minutes (it took my old oven 40 or so...just stick a toothpick in a muffin in the middle, and if it comes out pretty much clean, they're ready). Remove pan from oven and cool for 5 minutes. Then remove the muffins and cool.