My friend Daria sent me this recipe last week, and it is delicious. With a few modifications, here it is. Make them for breakfast–or get your husband to make them for breakfast for you. Personally, I like the husband route. Or the sister route. Or the friend route. Anything that doesn’t involve me being in the same room with a hot oven (AC window unit or no window unit), since it was already 85 degrees at 8:52 in the morning. But this is not meant to discourage you from making them! Just get up at 5am and bake them as the sun rises, like everyone used to do in the good ol’ days.

Ingredients

(Makes about 16 muffins, or 12 larger ones)

1/2 c canola oil

1/2 c white sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

3 tsp vanilla

1 large egg

2 cups flour

2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of allspice

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

2 TBS milk

2 large apples, finely chopped (I used Granny Smith)

1 tsp lemon juice

Before we jump in, I’d like to say that I really wanted to use applesauce instead of canola oil . . . but I had no applesauce, and it was way too hot outside to walk to the grocery store. So I’m relying on someone else to test that for me and let me know how the substitution works. Let’s waste no more time. Let’s make these muffie delights.

Preheat oven to 375. Chop your apples (no need to peel them), and coat them with the lemon juice to prevent browning.

Combine oil, sugar and vanilla, and cream them in your mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Add eggs and beat 1-2 minutes or until fully combined.

Now, sift together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, and baking powder. I used this awesome nutmeg grater that my in-laws gave me for Christmas a few years back:

Guess who made it?

The car company! Whaddya know.

Now it’s time to get sifting. We can play with the nutmeg grater at a later time.

Now, put everything together: add apples, dry ingredients, and milk to the oil/sugar/vanilla mixture.

Stir only until just incorporated.

What you now have on your hands is an spicy, apple-laden batter that I proceeded to eat by the spoonful as my husband shouted “Samonella! Salmonella!” in the background. I desisted after a great internal struggle.

Divide batter into little muffin cups (or spray the tin with baking spray).

Bake 25-35 minutes (35 in my oven), until the tops are just starting to crack. You can also grease and flour a 9x5x4 loaf pan and bake a loaf of this stuff for 50-60 minutes, but I recommend them in muffin format–I really think they taste better that way. Remove from the oven. Wait a little before taking them out of the muffin tin. I waited about 10 minutes, then put them on a cooling rack.

Then I couldn’t wait any longer and slathered one with butter. Wowza.

Tomorrow, return for a discussion on my favorite new kitchen toy. I mean, my favorite new kitchen necessity. Happy Wednesday!

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