Apple Cider Streusel Muffins

It is a Monday afternoon; practice has been canceled for the day because we had a race against OSU this past weekend, so what better way to fill our extra time than creating some sort of fall delight.  This afternoon we have decided to make apple cider streusel muffins.  This idea came to us as we traveled home from Columbus last night.  We were handed a large bag of red delicious apples and couldn’t help but think that a soul warming apple flavor was in order.  Unfortunately when looking for a recipe to fit our needs we could not find anything striking our fancy.  We decided to go with the apple inspiration without using actual apples.  (We will be using the apples for something else, don’t you fret.)  We found a recipe titled Apple Cider Streusel Muffins on foodnetwork.com. 

Ingredients

Streusel:

• 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts (optional)

Muffins:

• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup apple butter, such as Smucker’s
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup apple cider
• 1/3 cup low-fat plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup canola oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat 12 muffin cups with cooking spray.

To prepare streusel: Mix brown sugar, whole-wheat flour and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in walnuts, if using.

To prepare muffins: Whisk whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl.

Whisk egg and brown sugar in a medium bowl until smooth. Whisk in apple butter, syrup, cider, yogurt and oil. Make a well in the dry ingredients; add the wet ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until just combined. Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups (they’ll be quite full). Sprinkle with the streusel.

Bake the muffins until the tops are golden brown and spring back when touched lightly, 15 to 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Loosen edges and turn muffins out onto a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.

We decided to double this recipe because let’s be honest who only wants 12 muffins?  We also decided to use Trader Joe’s Cranberry Apple Butter instead of plain apple butter.  As the muffins baked they filled the apartment with the most excellent aroma of warm apples and butter.  Once they were finished, we let them set in the pan for about 5 minutes and then removed them.  The muffins had excellent flavor, but lacked a little bit of moisture.  We would recommend eating them warm with some butter or yogurt smeared in the middle.  Next time we want to intermix walnuts and apple chunks into the muffin batter to increase the moisture within.