Apple Muffins

These are the original muffins without the muffin tops.

I am re-posting this because I made these again with Sucanat sugar, and Fuji apples. I also ran out of cup cake liners when I baked it. So I just sprayed the muffin pan with Pam. These were even better this time, the interior was tender and not too sweet and that little extra crispness at the edges of the muffin top were oh so, wonderful! From now on, I am never going to use cup cake liners when I make muffins. Now I understand what all the fuss is about “muffin tops.’’

I adore apple muffins and love to try out new recipes. Here is one adapted from Vegan Baking Classics by Kelly Rudnicki. This is a library book that I plan to purchase for my collection – it’s a keeper. My only gripe with the book is she tends to use shortening and all-purpose flour. This particular recipe called for dairy-free margarine which I substituted with canola oil. I also used some whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-white flour. All I had on hand for apples was a huge Honeycrisp. I used about 3/4 of it for the muffins and ate the rest. These are beautiful little gems! Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
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1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup Sucanat sugar
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1-1/2 cups apple, peeled, chopped into pea sized pieces with 1/2 cup set aside

Topping
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Mix together in small bowl.

Directions
Heat oven to 375 degrees and prepare muffin tin. Mix first four wet ingredients in large bowl and set aside. Mix dry ingredients in another bowl and whisk together. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just mixed. Don't over mix. Fold in 1 cup of the apples.

I like to use a ice cream scoop to scoop the batter into muffin tins. Add the reserved chopped apple to top the muffins. Sprinkle about 1 teaspoon sugar topping (more or less depending on your sweet tooth) over each muffin. Bake 23-25 minutes until lightly browned and inserted toothpick comes out clean.