Recipe: Apple Cinnamon Pecan Muffins

Autumn is here in full force (in my neck of the woods, at least) and that means it’s time for my favourite flavour combination of all time: apple and cinnamon! It’s a classic and it’s delicious.

The start of autumn always marks my birthday as well; I turned 29 last week, and although I didn’t feel like baking an entire cake, I did want to bake something to mark the occasion, so I decided to go for these apple cinnamon pecan muffins. They turned out lovely – the perfect autumn snack! – so of course I wanted to share them with you. I used a dash of almond flavouring in this recipe, too, but I’m not entirely sure yet if vanilla might not have been better; something to try out next time!

Anyway, let’s move on to the recipe!

You’ll need… (for 12 muffins)

250 g plain flour
150 g light brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1½ teaspoon baking soda
a pinch of salt
2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
120 ml sunflower oil (or another type of vegetable oil)
2 eggs
200 ml plain yogurt
1 teaspoon almond flavouring (or vanilla)
200 g apples, diced (this is about two medium-sized apples)
70 g pecan nuts, roughly chopped
a muffin tin
optional: paper cases
and an oven, of course! These muffins need to be baked at 200 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

Tip: go for a type of apple that isn’t too sweet, but rather a little bit sour! It gives these muffins a much fresher taste and makes for a great contrast with the sweetness of the rest of the recipe.

1. Mix the dry ingredients together Firstly, you need to take a large bowl and sieve the flour, baking powder and baking soda into it. Also add the sugar, the pinch of salt and the teaspoons of cinnamon and mix it all together.

2. Mix the wet ingredients together Take a smaller bowl and mix together the oil, eggs, yogurt and almond (or vanilla) flavouring and mix it all until well-combined.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and add apples and pecans Create a little well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet mixture. Also add the diced apples and the chopped pecans at this point. Use a (wooden) spoon to gently fold everything together. Do not overmix — it is okay to still see little bits of flour. If you overmix the batter, your muffins will turn out too tough.

4. Divide the batter over the paper cases Divide your paper cases over the muffin tin (or grease the tin if you don’t use paper cases) and then spoon the mixture into the cases/tin.

5. Bake! Put the muffin tin into your preheated oven and bake the muffins for 18 to 20 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. When they’re done, take the tin out of the oven and let the muffins cool inside the tin for about 15 minutes. Then, take them out of the tin and let them cool on a cooling rack.

And that’s it! You’ve got your own apple cinnamon and pecan muffins – enjoy!