Apple Brown Sugar Muffins #MuffinMonday

These apple brown sugar muffins are tender and fluffy on the inside. The warm cinnamon elevates these beauties to pure comfort food. Brew up a pot of tea and bake up a batch.

Our kitchen is in a bit of a shambles as we rip out the old narrow cupboards and add new more spacious ones but we feel very strongly that anyone who owns a home built one hundred years ago has a responsibility to keep the original feel and as many of the vintage elements as one can. I know my readers in the UK will laugh at a 100-year-old home being considered old but, hey, the US is still a new republic, history-wise. And goodness knows we have a lot to learn.

The William Wilson Realty Company created our neighborhood in Houston, the Woodland Heights, back in 1907 but we believe our house dates from the early 1920s. The word wasn’t used back then but we would have been in the suburbs! Now with the spread of Houston to actual suburbs, we are considered almost downtown. Isn’t it funny how times change? The original houses sold for about $4,000, which I am guessing was a lot of money in those days.

One thing a person can still bake in a distraught kitchen is muffins. Two bowls: Wet ingredients. Dry ingredients. Mix them together and bake, even if you don’t have a countertop. That arrives on Thursday. One day we will have a more functional kitchen and I have to tell you, I’m still going to bake muffins. And use the Instant Pot. It’s been a godsend.

Apple Brown Sugar Muffins

If there is any combination that smells as delightful as it bakes as apples, brown sugar and cinnamon, I don’t know what it is. While these were in the oven, my house smelled absolutely fabulous. Plus the muffins are delicious. Bake them. You won’t regret it.

Ingredients
1 large apple (about 9 oz or 254g whole)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 cups or 250g all purpose flour
3/4 cup, tightly packed, or 150g dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 240ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil, plus a little extra for the pan
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C. Prepare your muffin pan by brushing it with oil or line it with paper muffin liners.

Peel, core and chop the apple into small pieces and toss them immediately with the lemon juice to stop them from discoloring.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, egg and vanilla.

Add the apple pieces into the dry ingredient bowl and stir to coat.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and fold until they are just combined. Do not over mix.

 Divide your batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups.

Bake 20-25 minutes in the preheated oven or until muffins are golden. Remove them from oven and let them cool for a few minutes before removing the muffins from the pan. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

It's the last Monday of the month and that means it's Muffin Monday! Check out all the wonderful muffins my friends are sharing:

• Apple Brown Sugar Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Blueberry Kumquat Muffins from Palatable Pastime
• Cheesy Corn and Bacon Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Curried Chicken Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Maple Cinnamon Nut Butter Muffins from Making Miracles
• Mini Nutella Swirled Muffins from Passion Kneaded

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

Pin these Apple Brown Sugar Muffins! 

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Dark Chocolate Chunk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies #CreativeCookieExchange

These wonderfully soft, chewy cookies are chock full of pecans in addition to the cocoa, dark chocolate and creamy peanut butter. But there is only so much information one title can contain. A cold glass of milk is an essential accompaniment.

Comfort Food Cookies
The theme for this month’s Creative Cookie Exchange is comfort food cookies.  Hmmm, comfort cookies. There are a lot of things that I find comfort in but, I’ve got to say, as a person who doesn’t crave sweets as much as she does salt and fat, I’m more likely to go for a link of smoked sausage or a slice of cheese than a cookie. I considered baking savory cookies but, I’ll be honest with you, that didn’t really say comfort to me either since they are usually more cracker-like. So, what it came down to was, if I were to eat a cookie for comfort, what would it look like? 1. It would have to have dark chocolate - black chocolate, as the French call it, because sweet milk chocolate is for chocolate wimps. 2. It would have a salty element. I considered bacon but decided on peanut butter, which helps with the next requirement. 3. It needs to be chewy. And for good measure, 4. I was going to throw some pecans in there. Because pecans are my favorite nut. They remind me of home home and that’s a comfort.

What would a comfort cookie look like for you?

Ingredients for 2 dozen thick cookies or more thin ones
3 1/2 oz or 100g dark chocolate
1 cup or 100g pecans
1/2 cup butter or 115g butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup or 140g creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
1/2 cup, packed, or 100g dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour
1/2 cup or 40g cocoa (I used Hershey’s regular, not the dark special.)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method
Roughly chop the chocolate and pecans with a sharp knife and set aside.

With your electric or stand mixer, cream the butter, peanut butter and two sugars together until they are light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl down a couple of times as you go.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.

Add the egg and vanilla into the butter/sugar and beat well.

Now add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix till combined. You will have a fairly stiff dough.

Add in the chocolate and pecans. Mix again.

Turn the dough out onto a large piece of cling film and shape it into a large roll.

Cover the roll tightly with the cling film and refrigerate for at least half an hour.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.

Slice your dough into rounds and place them on the prepared pan. Neaten them up with your hands, if need be. I like my cookies thick and chewy so I sliced mine pretty thick. If you prefer a crunchy cookie, by all means slice yours thinner.

These don't spread out much so you can put them fairly close together.

Bake in the preheated oven until the cookies are done the way you like them. I baked my thick cookies for just less than 10 minutes.

Allow to cool on the pan for a few minutes then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling. Okay, go ahead and eat one!

Serve with a glass of ice-cold milk.

Enjoy!

The Creative Cookie Exchange theme this month is Comfort Food Cookies! What cookie says comfort food to you? If you are a blogger and want to join in the fun, contact Laura at thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com and she will get you added to our Facebook group, where we discuss our cookies and share links. Many thanks to Laura for all the work it takes to organize this great group each month! 

You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts (you can find all of them here at The Spiced Life). You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

Also, if you are looking for inspiration to get in the kitchen and start baking, check out all the comfort cookies my fellow CCE bloggers have made this month:

• Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from What Smells So Good?
• Butterscotch Cookies from A Baker's House
• Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies from Made with Love
• Chocolate Cappuccino Toffee Chip Cookies from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Chocolate Chip Cookies Made with an Assortment of Chocolate from The Spiced Life
• Crispy Potato Chip Cookies from Rhubarb and Honey
• Dark Chocolate Chunk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies from Food Lust People Love
• Momma's Bran Chocolate Chip Cookies from Sweet Cinnamon Honey
• Nut Cookies from Basic N Delicious
• Peanut Butter & Damson Jam Bars from Baking in Pyjamas
• Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies from Noshing with the Nolands
• Quadruple Chocolate Shortbread Cookies from Magnolia Days
• Roth (The Sacred Cookies from Kashmir) from Spiceroots
• Thekua (Sweet Wheat Cookies from Bihar) from Indian Curries/Stew
• Triple Chocolate Cookies from It’s Yummi

Pumpkin and Apples Roasted with Brown Sugar #RandomRecipe Challenge

This wonderful recipe comes very slightly adapted from the gorgeous cookbook Bountiful – Recipes Inspired by our Garden, by Todd Porter and Diane Cu, the pair otherwise known as White on Rice Couple.  If you don’t have this one already, buy it now.  No kidding.  While it’s not a completely vegetarian cookbook, it does showcase garden vegetables enhanced by fragrant fresh herbs and warm, wonderful spices, making them the rightful main attraction on any dinner table. 

Bountiful: Recipes Inspired by Our Garden

This month’s Random Recipe Challenge from Dom at Belleau Kitchen is to choose a new cookbook, perhaps one you got for Christmas and open it randomly to a recipe, then make that.  As it happens, I got three cookbooks for Christmas, all from my mother, generous woman that she is.  In addition to Bountiful, she gave me the latest Ottolenghi book, Jerusalem and Clotilde Dusoulier’s new vegetarian cookbook, The French Market Cookbook.   I have spent the last few weeks reading and bookmarking and it’s going to take me ages to make all the dishes I want to make from all three fabulous books.  I’ve already said, “Buy Bountiful.”  But you’ll want the other two as well.

 

Ingredients - side dish for four or main course for two

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons, tightly packed, dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 medium apples (Mine together weighed a little more than 12 oz or 350g, whole.)

1 small pumpkin or winter squash (Mine weighed about 1 lb 13 oz or 840g, whole.) 

1/2 cup or 60 grams chopped pecans

Sea salt 

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Peel your pumpkin and remove the seeds.  

Slice into half moons about 1/2 in or 1cm wide.  Set aside.  If you want to toast the seeds later, these instructions are simple and easy to follow.  

Peel, halve and core your apples.  Slice them into thick wedges. 

Choose an ovenproof saucepan and you will save the washing up.  Otherwise, the first steps of cooking will be on the stove and then you will need to transfer the ingredients to a baking pan.   

Melt the butter in your pan over a medium heat.  It will start to pop and sizzle as the milk liquids evaporate.  When it stops sizzling, add in your brown sugar and your cinnamon and stir well until the sugar has melted into the butter. 

Add in the apples and stir well to coat them with the sugary butter.  

Sauté gently until the apples have softened slightly then add in the pumpkin.  

Stir well to coat the pumpkin with the butter and the apple juice that has cooked out the apples. 

Give the whole thing a good sprinkle of sea salt and a few good grinds of fresh black pepper.  And then top with the chopped pecans. 

Pop your saucepan in your preheated oven (or transfer everything to an ovenproof baking pan) and roast until you can pierce the pumpkin easily with a fork.  Mine took about 30-35 minutes.  

Enjoy! 

***This post includes affiliate links that will earn me some small change, for which I am much obliged, if you make a purchase after following the links.***  

Sweet Potato Brown Sugar Muffins #MuffinMonday

Mashed, buttered sweet potatoes add flavor, natural sweetness and moisture to these delicious muffins.  The hint of vanilla and cinnamon, along with the brown sugar, make these perfect for breakfast or a midmorning snack.

As this recipe goes live, I will be flying back to Dubai after enjoying more than three weeks of fun and family in Rhode Island.  What a beautiful state, truly.  When our elder daughter first mentioned Rhode Island School of Design, back in spring of 2008, and we visited the school that summer, I had no idea what a precious part of our lives this place would become.  That was further cemented when her little sister was accepted at RISD two years later.  It has been our pleasure to explore New England from our little rented home in Tiverton in the south, to as far east as Plymouth and west to Newport, with a little Providence and Boston thrown in for good measure.

If you haven’t visited New England before, I highly recommend it, especially Rhode Island, even in the wintertime.

Ingredients
1 whole sweet potato (about 5-6 oz or 140-170g)
1/4 cup or 60g room temperature butter
2 cups or 250g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2/3 cup or 130g dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 cup or 240ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method
Scrub your sweet potato and poke it all over with the tip of a sharp knife.  Microwave on high for three minutes, turning it over halfway through.  Give it a gentle squeeze to see if it feels soft.  Microwave for another minute on the first side if necessary.  Remove the peel and mash the inside with a fork.

Add in the butter and stir it around so it melts.  Set aside and allow to cool.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your muffin pan by greasing it or lining it paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon.

In another bowl, whisk together the cooled, mashed sweet potato, milk, eggs and vanilla.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake in the preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for a few minutes and then remove the muffins to cool completely.

Enjoy!

For those who are interested, I leave you with some random shots from our fabulous three weeks in New England.

Tiverton House - highly recommended  - hosts are wonderful.  Link here.
And, no, I have not been compensated in any way for saying this!

Christmas parade in Newport - complete with Santas riding Harleys

Newport Harbor

Quaint shops in Newport.

Roasting marshmallows at home

Every sunset seemed to outdo the next

Sailboats on the river by our house

The purported Plymouth Rock.  We've been told since that the real rock is underneath this one.

Mayflower II.  This is a reproduction of the Mayflower, built in England and sailed across in 1957.
If you come in the summer, you can climb aboard and imagine the voyage.

Fancy columns commemorating Plymouth Rock

The First Baptist Church in all of the United States, Providence, RI (1638)

Playing in the snow!