Finally Friday: Apple zucchini spice muffins
July 20, 2018
Baking muffins has been a really nice way for JB and me to spend some time in the kitchen together with a minimum of stress and loss of fingers.
I’ve been on the hunt for the recipe for the allspice muffins I baked in Home Ec in middle school, and still haven’t found it, but this is an acceptable substitute.
The first time I baked these as minis, they were a disaster. Overbaked and too dry – yechhhh.
The second time, I added the fruit and baked it for less time since the mini muffins are much smaller, and voila! Delightful! I have no idea how much more you can play with the ingredients but let’s just assume that you can take a few steps further if you’re feeling adventurous but it didn’t seem to work wonderfully with a strawberry watermelon combination when I experimented the first time.
I try to make a double batch each time so we can freeze at least half for a future week when I’m not up to baking.
Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
1⁄2 cup unsalted butter
1 5.3 ounce greek yogurt
1 small zucchini, pureed
1 small apple, pureed
3 eggs
2 1⁄2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
3/4 cup buttermilk*
1 tablespoon buttermilk, additional
2 tablespoons wheat bran**
Our favorite additions for toppings: chocolate chips, walnuts, pecan, or almond pieces
Directions
* We never keep buttermilk on hand, I just plop a tablespoon of white vinegar into milk and let that become buttermilk.
** I leave out the wheat bran these days so I don’t accidentally reach for it and contaminate my GF version of these muffins.
Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Peel and puree apple and zucchini, set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter together with an electric mixer. Add the pureed apple and zucchini, and yogurt.
- When they are thoroughly mixed, add the eggs and beat for 1 more minute.
- Into a separate bowl, sift the flour, the baking soda, allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon.
- Add the flour and buttermilk to the first mixture alternately, in small amounts, and mix at low speed until smooth.
- Fill each cup ¾ full of batter.
Bake until the muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out dry: cupcake size muffins 16 minutes, mini muffins 9 minutes.
