This past Saturday we had a delightfully empty day. We actually had no plans to go anywhere, and other than my excruciating grocery shopping trip, we simply stayed home and relaxed. It was wonderful! As I sat that morning at the computer, I found myself wishing I’d pulled a quick bread out of the freezer for breakfast. Silly me, it’s called quick bread for a reason, so I decided I’d treat the family to some really simple Cinnamon Muffins.
It’s a pretty basic muffin batter, but one thing I decided to do was grate up a small apple and fold that in with the wet ingredients. That worked great! There was a slight hint of apple pie flavor to these muffins, but there weren’t huge chunks of apple anywhere to be found. The one thing I debated was the topping. I thought about doing a streusel topping, as that is my favorite, but I decided I wanted to try something different. After the muffins came out of the oven, I let them sit and cool just until I could handle them. Then I melted 2 tablespoons of butter in a small dish. I took each muffin and dipped it’s top in the melted butter, and then plunked them into a little bowl of cinnamon sugar.
Holy cow, did that take these muffins over the edge! When Zander smelled muffins baking, he got all excited until he learned that they were not blueberry muffins, his favorite. We wasn’t even going to try these ones, but I talked him into it. Let’s just say one batch makes 12 muffins… next time I need to double the batch, because we devoured each and every one.
Cinnamon Sugar Muffins
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup milk 1/3 cup vegetable oil 1 small apple, peeled and grated on a box grater Topping: 1/8 cup cinnamon sugar 2 tablespoons melted butterDirections:
Preheat oven to 400ºF and spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.
In a mixing bowl, combined the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and spices. Mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the egg, milk, and vegetable oil. Mix well to combine, and then add the grated apple.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Divide the batter among 12 muffin cups.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Take the muffins out of the pan to cool on a metal rack. Once they’ve cooled enough to handle, dip each muffin top in melted butter, and then in the cinnamon sugar. Allow to cool completely before serving.
Makes 12 muffins.