Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

Since I've joined the blogosphere some 7 months ago now, I've found some fantastic food/cooking blogs out there. There are gazillions of them yet no two are even remotely the same. I've browsed sites from all over the world ranging from gourmet to ethnic to vegetarian- even a formally trained pastry chef. I find it fascinating to see what types of things people enjoy cooking at home and its great to explore the unique styles of writing and photography too.

This recipe for Whole Wheat Apple Muffins came from one of the most popular cooking blogs I've discovered called SmittenKitchen.com. Deb is a freelance writer, photographer AND home chef extraordinaire - pretty much the poster-child for cooking bloggers actually. She has posted HUNDREDS of recipes and honestly, I want to try every single one of them. (Probably a testament to her amazing photography skills.) This first recipe did not let me down...

The recipe is relatively simple so I made them fresh one weekday morning for a meeting. I left my stick of butter and egg out on the counter over night to come to room temperature. I followed the recipe just as she's posted it, adding approx 1/3 cup of walnut pieces to the mix as well. I used fuji apples which I peeled and diced as the very last step before folding them into the batter.

I'll go ahead and admit here that I actually made this recipe twice in the very same week! My sister was in town for the weekend and I love to bake something fresh for guests. The second go round came out a little bit better because I a) let my buttermilk sit out an hour or two to come to room temperature and b) I diced my apples a little bit smaller. I found that the cold buttermilk made my batter curdle a little bit first with the first attempt and the smaller apples were slightly more tender.

At first I was skeptical that I'd used too much apple because the batter seemed like it was almost entirely apple as I spooned it into the muffin tin- however they came out just right. The whole wheat gives them a hearty richness (healthy too!), the sprinkle of brown sugar on the top gives them the perfect crunch and the apple chunks really are a wonderful change from your average blueberry or banana muffin. I particularly like that they aren't overly sweet either.

A few important tips/tricks that I've learned from years of muffin baking:

1. Don't overmix the batter once you've added your dry ingredients or your muffins will be tough

2. Always let your butter and eggs come completely to room temperature

3. Look for recipes containing buttermilk, they are usually delicious

4. Butter AND flour your muffin tin to avoid sticking, I don't like paper liners

5. When the muffins are done baking, let cool in the pan 5 minutes, no longer or they'll be harder to get out of the pan

I might try some different variations to this basic recipe too:

*Add a struesel topping

*Add reconstituted dried cranberries or raisins

*Add or sub a mashed banana and a handful of oatmeal

*Substitute blueberries for apples and add some lemon zest

*Substitute fresh halved cranberries and add some orange zest

Yumm... can't wait to sample another recipe from SK.com!