Apple Muffins

Muffins are a fast and easy favorite snack for both children and adults, especially when still warm straight out of the oven. They can be filled with a variety of fruits or even  vegetables or not filled with anything and made just 'plain'.

In this lesson we are going to experiment a bit and make apple muffins.

Ingredients are: apples, cream, flour, butter or margarine, nutmeg, golden syrup, cinnamon, baking powder, vanilla essence and eggs.

First, after preparing a clean surface to work on and thoroughly washing our hands with a high grade soap we need to peel and cut up some apple. Preferably sweet apple for optimum flavor.

Here, we're using a peeler, but you can use a knife if you don't have a peeler. Also, you have the option of leaving the skin on and just cut up the apple. That's why muffins are great to make for you can continually experiment with new ideas.

Next we need to cut out the apple core, including the seeds, and whilst doing this we can start cutting the apples into smaller pieces. 

Although we have peeled four large apples we are only going to need two for the amount of muffins we are going to make. Which is approximately forty muffins.

Once we have removed all parts of the apple core it's time to start cutting the apples up into small chunky pieces. You can see that two large apples does in fact cut up into quite a lot of small pieces. So much in fact that we need to divide the apple into two bowls.

Next we add some cream to the apple in one of the bowls, mix it in and let it sit for a while to let the pieces soak up the cream.

We then cut up the pieces into smaller chunks in both bowls. How small you want the chunks is entirely up to you. Another advantage with soft sweet apple is it's easy to cut up.

Next we put all the apple chunks into one bowl and mix it all together.

Next we prepare the flour. In this lesson we are going to experiment with a combination of different flour. We are going to use approx 500 grams of strong bread flour. Into the bread flour we add approx four teaspoons of baking powder. Baking powder is a leavening agent and will add air pockets to the mixture when stirred and cause the mixture to rise or expand during baking.

After adding the baking powder we mix it throughout the bread flour.

Next we  add approx 500 grams of hot cake mix, which already has sweetening agents in it  so we don't need to use sugar at all.

Next we add three cap fulls of vanilla essence and mix into the flour.
Next we add one large tablespoon of golden syrup which will also add a bit of sweetness.
Next we add two large eggs and mix into the flour.
Next we add approx 120 grams of butter or margarine.
Next we add a sprinkling of nutmeg.

Next we add the apple pieces into the flour mix.

WOW we're going to need a BIGGER mixing bowl!

That's more like it. A bowl of this size will allow us to properly mix everything together.

Next we add some more cream to get the right moisture content with the mixture. Another alternative here would be to add some pure apple juice instead of cream.

Next we prepare our muffin holders and start dolloping the mixture into each holder.

Next we place the muffins onto a baking tray ready to go into the oven for baking.

In this instance we are using a convection oven and set the temperature at 180 degrees celcius and a bake time of 25 to 30 minutes.

After the muffins are baked properly and have turned a golden brown in color, remove from the oven and allow to cool before handling.

mmmm don't they look delicious!!

Here you can see a muffin close up and note it's relative rough texture compared to our banana and 'all star' muffins which have a smoother texture.

With the next batch of muffins we add a bit more milk for extra moisture and a sprinkling of cinnamon for a different flavor.

After mixing the new mix we again dollop out into the muffin holders.

After baking let sit for a while before handling and eating.

Here you can see the inside texture of the new batch with chunks of apple.

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