For a delicious autumnal breakfast or afternoon snack; cinnamon sugar apple muffins
But first of all these black muffins/cupcake cases. They were the last of a colourful bunch of cases I had in stock. To be clear I don’t celebrate the pagan holidays of halloween or bonfire night for obvious religious reasons.
Onto these beautiful muffins.
The classic flavour combo of slightly tart apples and sweet woody cinnamon inside soft, tender crumb part whole-wheat muffins. They also have caramel notes from brown sugar, a rounded flavour from all spice and cinnamon sugared tops, got you drooling already?
Soft tender crumb isn’t often a description associated with whole-wheat baked goods, but using buttermilk as part of the wet ingredients does the job of making sure these healthier muffins are soft as buns as opposed to hard as rocks!
In keeping with my food for thought – apple cider vinegar post I homemade buttermilk: combining milk and apple cider vinegar, leaving until it curdles then mixing into other wet ingredients before adding the dry. I’m not sure any of the health benefits of apple cider vinegar will remain after baking the muffins but it’s a pretty neat hack instead of using the usual white vinegar sub and it may just increase the ‘appleyness’ of the apples slightly.
Cinnamon Sugar Apple Muffins
- 1 1/2 cups apple, finely chopped (i used gala apples
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup milk
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1/3 brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon halal concentrated vanilla extract
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoon golden caster sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- Prepare Ingredients: Microwave or heat the butter until it’s melted. Repeat the same process for the milk to bring it to room temperature. Add the vinegar to the milk and let it sit for a few minutes to turn into “buttermilk” – or just use real buttermilk instead!
- For the muffins: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F or 175C. In a large bowl, whisk the butter, buttermilk, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla until smooth. Add the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and allspice. Stir until just combined. Fold in the apples. Scoop the mixture into a greased or lined muffin tin – mini, regular, or jumbo sizes will all work.
- For the topping: Melt the butter for the topping. Add the sugar and cinnamon; spoon over the tops of the muffins. You only need a little bit to get the crunchy top effect, but if you love those crunchy cinnamon sugar tops, make twice or three times as much topping as what’s listed above. Bake the muffins for 15 minutes, more or less by a few minutes depending on size. The centres should spring back when gently touched
