apple

Apple Muffins

August 22, 2018

This is the third makeover of this recipe that I’ve done and it may be my favorite yet!

With Fall right around the corner, I have been hankering for anything “Fall spiced”, which includes all things apple, pumpkin, and more! These apple muffins certainly check off that box with the sweet and tart apples mixed with the cinnamon-y spice of apple pie spice. They certainly are getting me in the mood for Fall!

How to Make Them

First, mix together the dry ingredients: flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

Then combine most of the wet ingredients. I like to whisk the milk (make sure it’s warm), butter, sour cream, applesauce, and vanilla together first so that it forms a smooth slurry. If your butter starts to harden because the other ingredients are too cold, pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds or so until you can whisk it smooth.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and now add the egg. Mix until the batter until it is just combined.

Fold in the chopped up apples then portion the batter into the muffin pan.

I like to use my ice cream scoop for this because it seems to make the perfect sized muffin!

Bake the muffins at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until they are nice and brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

Definitely let them cool for about 10 minutes before trying to eat. The apples inside will be steaming hot if you dive into them too early!

After that, have at them! They are a wonderfully delicious breakfast treat any time of year, but especially now as we head into apple season!

This is a great recipe to have under your belt if you plan on going apple picking this year!

Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp apple pie spice
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk (warm or room temp)
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 apples, peeled and chopped (approx. 2 cups)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with liners and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine flours, sugars, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk until there are no more lumps.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine butter, applesauce, sour cream, milk, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.
Pour wet ingredients into the bowl with dry ingredients. Add in the egg and mix until all ingredients are combined.
Fold in the apple pieces.
Scoop approximately 1/4-1/3 cup of the batter into each muffin tin cavity. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until the tops are brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Caramel Apple Oatmeal Cookies

November 14, 2017

A couple weekends ago I put out an Instagram poll asking folks what I should bake over the weekend. Most people voted between pumpkin pie, apple pie, cookies, and Rice Krispie treats (so, just about everything I posted last week). One follower had a very specific request: Caramel Apple Walnut Oatmeal Cookies.

I mean, those just sounded too good NOT to make so I added it to my list of baking experiments.

Fortunately for all of us, they turned out amazing! Imagine a soft oatmeal cookie wrapped around a hunk of gooey caramel. Oh baby! Fresh from the oven, there is nothing better!

I started off by making a basic oatmeal cookie dough. But I replaced 1/2 cup of butter with shredded apple. To shred the apple, I took the apple straight to a box grater and grated it until I hit the core. The shredded apple adds lots of flavor, some moisture, and cuts out some of the fat from the butter! You could almost call these cookies somewhat healthy.

Except for that huge chuck of caramel right in the middle. That really negates any of the health-factor from the apples.

I scooped out balls of the cookie dough and stuck a caramel square right in the middle. Then I covered up the caramel with a bit more dough and rolled it into a ball.

After a quick stop in the oven these cookies are ready for the taking! I highly recommend only letting these puppies cool for a few minutes so that you can enjoy them while the caramel is still ooey gooey.

However, they are still perfectly yummy at room temperature, but the caramel will just be chewy instead of gooey.

If you don’t want one chunk of caramel in the middle of the cookie, you could instead add caramel chips. That was actually the original recommendation by the follower who posted this recipe idea. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any caramel chips and was too lazy to go to the store, so caramel squares it was!

It basically comes down to whether you want caramel disbursed throughout your cookie or one caramel center surprise.

There are no wrong answers. It’s caramel. And apples! And cookies! Those will always be the right answer in my book!

[show_shopthepost_widget id=”2894812″]

[yumprint-recipe id=’144′]

Apple Pie Overnight Oats

October 16, 2017

Breakfast is definitely my favorite meal of the day. Not only does it get my day started off on the right foot, it is also the only meal where it is socially acceptable to eat sweets. (Think about it, muffins are just breakfast cupcakes and pancakes are literally pan cakes!) While I will happily take full advantage of the pancake/waffle section of any brunch menu on the weekends, during the week I do try to be a bit healthier in my breakfast choices while still satisfying my 24/7 sweet tooth.

Which is why I love this new(ish) overnight oat trend! It takes a good ol’ breakfast standby (oatmeal) and turns it into something that could almost be dessert. Or in the case of these apple pie overnight oats, it takes a favorite dessert and turns it into a respectable breakfast.

I should say, a very respectable breakfast. To make these apple pie overnight oats, I didn’t use a single gram of sugar. I did use honey and maple syrup to sweeten it up a tad, but if you are watching your glucose intake, you could cut them out completely.

First, I mixed together the applesauce and the apple pie spice in the bottom of a jar. Then I poured in the milk. In this case, I used unsweetened almond milk, but you can use whichever milk product you prefer. Lastly, I poured in the oats and mixed them in with everything else so that everything was evenly distributed.

I popped the jars into the fridge so that they would be ready for me in the morning!

The oats are delicious on their own. But to really conjure up that apple pie flavor I made an apple topping that is basically just apple pie filling, minus most of the butter and all of the sugar.

The apples on top also added just a bit more sweetness to the oats which really made me feel like I was eating dessert for breakfast. Except unlike the muffins, pancakes, or waffles I have most weekends, this breakfast is actually pretty dang healthy.

One other benefit of overnight oats that I forgot to mention is that you can make a bunch up ahead of time; then, in the morning you can grab your oats and go! I have found that the oats stay good in the fridge for three or four days. So I make up a couple jars on Sunday night, and I have breakfast planned for the rest of the week!

[yumprint-recipe id=’140′]

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Apple Bunt Cake

October 19, 2016

If there is one thing you can’t say “no” to, it’s a hungry pregnant woman. At least, I can’t. If you are creating a human life, I will make you any food you want. That’s why when my 6-month pregnant friend and co-worker asked me to recreate a muffin she loved, I had to give it a shot.

One morning she called me over to her desk and told me to try the muffin she picked up for breakfast. It was a pumpkin muffin, but it was stuffed with apples, and had some sort of caramel glaze. Sounds delicious, right? It was! So I took a couple notes and told her I would come up a recipe for her to try.

I started with a pumpkin base, which I adapted from my pumpkin bar and pumpkin bread recipe. To that, I added some apples that I sauteed in butter, sugar, and cinnamon until then were soft. I folded the apples into the cake batter and then poured it into a bunt cake pan. I could have made these muffins or cupcakes, but I thought a bunt cake would be more fun. Plus, I had just bought this bunt cake pan so I wanted to take it for a spin.

Once it had come out of the oven and was cooled, I poured over some caramel sauce. I actually used those caramel candies you would buy for dipping apples into, but if I had the time (and the cream), I would have made my own caramel sauce to pour on top.

While the sauce was still a bit sticky, I sprinkled on some sea salt and pepitas for an extra crunch.

Then I took the cake to my friend for a taste test. The verdict? It was good! I would have never paired pumpkin and apples, but it really worked! It was like apple pie filling meets a pumpkin cake. It was the perfect Fall flavor combination. And the salted caramel just sent it over the top. Literally the icing on the cake.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:86]

Salted Caramel Apple Bars

September 28, 2015

If I could recommend one Fall activity, it would be apple picking! We went a couple years ago, and it was so much fun to be up in the mountains, surrounded by apple trees, and picking your own apples. The downside (which is hardly a bad thing), is that you will have tons and tons of apples and no idea what to do with them!

Well here’s an idea! Salted caramel apple bars! They taste like apple pie with a hint of salty-sweet caramel. And by that I mean, DELICIOUS!

The recipe is essentially a blondie recipe with apples baked in and caramel sauce swirled into the batter.

The result, as I mentioned, is a lot like apple pie! But, if you are anything like me, you like the crust more than the apple part of the apple pie. So these bars have just the right amount of apple for me.

And if want even more caramel sauce, just drizzle any left over caramel over the top. You can’t go wrong with extra caramel.

[yumprint-recipe id=’63’]

Apple Streusel Muffins

March 21, 2014

For those of you who happened to follow my old blog (hi, Mom!), you may remember this recipe. For some reason is has been one of my more popular recipes on Pinterest so it made a good candidate for my “test” blog post.

I made these muffins after a trip up to the mountains near Charlotte this past Fall. We had so many apples I need to find creative ways to use them all. They turned out wonderfully. So much so, I will probably make this a Fall staple.

[yumprint-recipe id=’2′]

A Bushel and a Peck and a Recipe

October 21, 2013

This past weekend, with no wedding planning to do, I wanted to get out of town and do something B and I have never done before: apple picking!

I had no idea what to expect. Like, how long it would take, how much it would cost, how much effort I would have to put into actually picking apples, etc. And not that I didn’t think it would be fun (it was my idea after all), but B and I just had such a fun time walking through the orchards, picking apples, taking pictures, drinking cider…the whole bit. It definitely helped that the scenery was gorgeous!

The result of all that fun was about 15 pounds of apples! I have no idea what to do with all those apples. There is only so much cider and apple pie you can make.

Well, I did get busy making muffins (of course) with some of my many many apples. Unfortunately, that only used 3 apples. So I have about 40 more apples to use up before they go bad.

Can you recommend anything else I should make with all my apples? If you have any good recipes, send them my way!

P.S. Do you notice anything different around here?? I have a new design by the lovely and talented Sarah of A Smitten Design! I absolutely love it and would recommend Sarah to anyone looking to spice up their blog design!