Apple Cinnamon Muffins

As I’ve mentioned before, baking has a therapeutic effect on me; it calms me down and destresses me. When I need that kind of baking therapy I usually go for a muffin recipe, and that is what happened last week. I don’t know what it is about muffins, but I find them very calming. That sounds kinda weird, but it’s true. I guess it’s because I’ve baked so many muffins during my “baking career”; it doesn’t involve a lot of thinking anymore since I’m familiar with the general process. I mean, those meringues I tried to make were a huge failure mainly because I was too stressed out to try something new.

For these muffins I didn’t feel like leaving the house to go and buy ingredients, so I had to make do with what I’d still got left at home. I had the main ingredients, and some apples — and after that realisation I had a huge craving for apple cinnamon muffins! There was just one tiny problem, being I didn’t have any milk (I don’t drink milk on a regular basis) and in most of my muffin recipe milk is a required ingredient.

I made these muffins without any milk, which made the batter a lot more dough-like than my muffin batters normally are. I was a tiny bit worried, but oh my god did they turn out good! This recipe is definitely going to be the base for my future muffin recipes..!

You’ll need… (for 12 muffins)

– 250 g plain flour

– 1,5 teaspoon baking powder

– 0,5 teaspoon salt

– 1 teaspoon cinnamon (and some more to sprinkle the muffins with)

– 200 g sugar

– 115 g butter

– 2 eggs

– 1 teaspoon vanilla flavouring

– 2 apples, chopped (and perhaps a bit of lemon juice to sprinkle them with)

– a bit of light brown sugar to sprinkle the muffins with

– a muffin tin (for 12 muffins)

– and an oven, of course! These muffins need to be baked at 180 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Mix together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon The first thing you need to do is to mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Now put it to the side while you get messy with the wet ingredients (well, not that messy).

2. Mix together wet ingredients Next up, you mix together the sugar and the butter with a whisk. As always, I recommend melting the butter. It makes this job so much easier! After the butter and sugar are nicely mixed, add the eggs and whisk until the mixture is nice and smooth. Then, add the vanilla and mix again. The only thing left to add now are the chopped up apples. Mix it all together.

3. Put it all together Now, you need to gradually add the dry mixture to the wet one and mix it all together with a spoon until it’s blended. As always, don’t over stir the muffin mixture!

4. Divide your batter over 12 paper cases The next step is to divide the batter over the muffin tin. Put a little paper case in every hole of the muffin tin or grease the holes of the tin with some butter. Now divide the batter evenly over the 12 paper cases. I completely filled all of the paper cases, even though “they” say you only need to fill it 3/4 if you want your muffins to rise, and they came out beautifully anyway!

5. Sprinkle, sprinkle, little star Sprinkle some light brown sugar and cinnamon over the top of the muffins. The sugar will give the muffins a nice crunch, and it looks cool!

6. Bake the muffins! Put the muffin tin in your preheated oven (180 °C) and bake them for about 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. They’ll have a nice golden brown colour. When they’re done, take the muffin tin out of the oven and let the muffins cool inside the tin for about 5 minutes. Then take them out of the tin and let them cool completely. Or eat them while they’re still warm. That last one takes my preference!

And that’s it! Enjoy your apple cinnamon muffins!