Monday 11 October 2010

Apple and Cinnamon Muffins

Did you all have a lovely weekend? My weekend was nice but busy around the house. Dare I mention it but with Christmas around the corner I like to give the house a good de-cluttering and sort out before the madness begins. Then I have free time to bake, cook and enjoy the festive season; of course the daily housework will always be there! So our weekend kicked off the start of our autumn clean up project. I did however manage to find some time to get into my kitchen for a spot of baking and baked these wonderful Apple and Cinnamon Muffins from Nigella Kitchen. The smell of these muffins while baking was divine and they reminded me of all the wonderful xmas scents to come. As I expected these muffins were beautifully moist from the apple chunks and had so much flavour and texture. Hubby and I both agreed these muffins are definitely a must bake but you should seriously try them served as a pudding with lashings of custard, we did!


Apple and Cinnamon Muffins

Makes 12 (I ended up with 18)

Ingredients
2 eating apples
250g plain flour (or spelt flour)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
125g light brown sugar, plus 4 tsp for sprinkling
125ml honey
60ml runny natural yoghurt
125ml flavourless vegetable oil
2 eggs
75g natural (unblanched) almonds

Preheat the oven to 200oC/180oC fan oven/gas mark 6 and line your muffin tin with papers.

Peel and core the apples, then chop into small dice (about 1cm) and put them to one side.

Measure the flour, baking powder and 1 tsp of the ground cinnamon into a bowl.

Whisk together the 125g brown sugar, the honey, yoghurt, vegetable oil and eggs in another bowl or jug.

Chop the almonds roughly and add half of them to the flour mixture, and put the other half into a small bowl with the second tsp of ground cinnamon and the 4 extra tsp brown sugar. This will make the topping for the muffins.

Now fold the wet ingredients into the dry. Add the chopped apple, and stir to combine but don’t over mix.

Spoon this bumpy batter into the muffin papers, then sprinkle the rubbly topping mixture over them.

Pop the tin into the prepared oven, and bake for about 20 minutes, by which time they will have risen and become golden.

Take the tin out of the oven and let it stand for about 5 minutes before gingerly taking out the muffins and placing them on a wire cooling rack.

13 comments:

Gloria Baker said...

Love your cinnamon muffins MarĂ­a. !
and yes I was thinking last days Christmas is in the corner! but I love Christmas, love all of Christmas, xx gloria

Nic's Notebook said...

Noooo more lovely recipes! I'm trying to be good before we go on hol in just under a month lol!! My OH doesn't like cinnamon so if I made them I would have to eat them all lol..!

Chele said...

Yum - just the kind of baking I like at this time of year ;0)

Brownieville Girl said...

Feeling totally inadequate now .... will have to start about the Christmas cleaning now!!!!!!!

Muffins look great!

Sonia ~ Nasi Lemak Lover said...

lovely muffins!

Vicky said...

I've been de cluttering too this morning. I can just imagine the smell from your muffins, they look fab! xxxx

Victoria said...

Just a last word on your blog before buying my new laptop to tell you that your muffins look fabulous! I love homemade muffins! (As you could see on my blog:) ) So, I will see you on your blog in a few week with my new computer! :)

Victoria

Peachy Tarts said...

Beautiful apple muffins, Maria! They look like autumn in a paper case.

And thank you for your comments on my blog :)

Lauren

Scented Sweetpeas said...

Scrummy, they look lovely and I bet they do smell gorgeous.

Lucie said...

I love a good sort out at this time of year too :) These muffine look so wonderful - the bits on top look fab! Love Lucie xxx

Beth (jamandcream) said...

Im like you - have a good declutter and take all unwanted bits to the carboot! These muffins sounds divine Maria

Caroline said...

They look fab and I love the idea of serving them with custard for dessert - inspired!

Apple and warming cinnamon seems just right for this time of the year when the evenings are getting chilly.

Nana said...

I hope you're not getting fed up with me sampling your blog's recipes and commenting on how absolutely delicious they turned out~

I made them yesterday and even my no-sweet-tooth mum got addicted to them. Instead of nuts, I put in chocolate chips because I'm not much of a nut-person ^^ So good!