Apple Pie Muffins

Sometimes inspiration for this blog just strikes from out of the blue.  Sometimes, it doesn't.  Today was a good day.  I was driving home from work, thinking about those honey crisp apples we picked at Hick's last weekend, and thought about making an apple pie.  I just didn't want to do all the work of making an apple pie.  And I didn't have any Philly Vanilla ice cream from Stewart's (a requirement).  So that nixed that.  Hmmm.  I thought about my great and easy basic muffin recipe, and how I could saute the apples with cinnamon and sugar and fold them into the muffin batter, and thus my apple pie muffin recipe was born!

I've seen recipes that use grated apples, but I wanted the softer, chunkier presence of these beautiful apples in my muffins.  So, I took two big apples, peeled, and diced them into 1/2 inch pieces.  I tossed those in a saute pan with about a teaspoon of butter and a tablespoon of canola oil.  I sprinkled about 1/3 cup of granulated sugar, and sprinkled cinnamon over the top of all of it.  The lid went on and the apples cooked for a good few minutes until they were fork-tender.  I took them off the heat and stirred in a teaspoon of vanilla, and let it cool for a while.  It made a nice, syrupy glaze, too.  All of that was stirred into the basic batter (recipe below) and this new muffin has been added to my repertoire.  The aroma while they were baking was amazing!

Here's the recipe:

APPLE PIE MUFFINS
an original recipe!
Makes 18 standard muffins

Oven 400 degrees Farenheit

Prepare muffin tins with spray or muffin liners (I use spray to make them look authentically home-made).

Mix the following together and cook over medium heat in a saute pan until apples are fork tender:
2 large honey crisp apples (or your favorite apple), peeled & diced into 1/2-inch pieces
1 teaspoon butter
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Stir often and put a lid on it if you want them to cook a little faster and retain more moisture (that's what I did).
Allow to cool a bit while you're making the muffin batter.

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 eggs
1 cup milk or butter milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Stir together dry ingredients.  Make well in center.

Whisk eggs with a fork and stir in milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla.  Dump into the well of the dry ingredients and stir with a fork until all the dry ingredients are moistened.

Fold in cooled apples and their sauce from the saute pan.

Fill muffin cups 1/2 to 3/4 full.  I use a levered ice cream scoop (standard size) to get uniform muffins.
Sprinkle tops with a cinnamon sugar mixture.

Bake for 18 - 22 minutes, OR (and this is important) until muffins are done - you can test by pressing lightly and if the muffins bounce back, they're done.  Mine were done after 18 minutes.  If they are still moist on top and don't bounce back, they're not done.

Cool in pan on rack for about 5 minutes.  Carefully remove from pans onto wire rack to cool completely.

Here are some photos of my successful apple pie muffin experiment!:

The New Apple Pie Muffin!  Click to inhale (I mean, enlarge)!