Top of the Muffin To You

Oh man, it has been a while since I last posted. I have no excuse; I just got lazy (but what's new?). 

Anyway, I have found myself in an interesting food dilemma. I am staying in Provo for Spring/Summer, which means that I don't have to spend an entire month abstaining from grocery store trips so that I can eat every edible item in my possession before I go home for the summer. However, I am moving apartments, and this is a transition that is eased by simply having less stuff to haul. Alas, I don't have to get rid of all of my food, but doing so makes my life a lot easier. Which leads me to today's recipes.

I have a lot of random ingredients laying around my apartment that need to be used. Two such ingredients are 1) two granny smith apples that I bought...a while ago for another recipe that never got made and 2) some sweet potato puree left over from this recipe (which I highly recommend). I thought it was a good idea to make muffins out of these things, and they turned out so well that not one, but two of my roommates requested the recipes.

Apple left, sweet potato right

Not to brag, but my food usually tastes pretty good. However, it does not often look very attractive. People are often skeptical about the offerings I bring to parties or break-the-fast. Such is not the case with these babies. The pictures don't really capture it, but they looked like they belonged in a bakery, particularly the sweet potato muffins, which domed perfectly with their crispy streusel tops. Mmm...streusel. 
 

It took my about an hour to make both types. The most labor-intensive process of the whole operation was grating the apples.

So here's the moment you've all been waiting for: the recipes!

First, the apple muffins. For starters, I left the skin on the apples. It gives a little fiber boost and it's much less work. I just quartered and peeled each apple and then grated the quarters by hand. NBD. Since I have no idea what vanilla powder is, I just used 1 tsp vanilla extract. I used canola oil instead of olive oil. I added 1/4 tsp of nutmeg in with the cinnamon. Also, I didn't bother with the lemon-sugar topping. The muffins were sweet enough on their own, so if you have a lemon on hand that you're dying to use, I recommend adding the zest to the batter. In addition, the oven temperature is in Celsius, and it's about 340 degrees farenheit. 

Note for both recipes: In case you didn't know, "zest" is the outside part of citrus fruits - the part with all of the oils that really give these fruits their quintessential flavors. There are special zesters and microplanes for zesting citrus, but you can improvise by either using the smallest holes on your cheese grater or by carefully using a knife to cut off the zest and then mincing it. Now here's the important part: when you zest (you gotta admit, it's a pretty fun verb), make sure not to get any of the white stuff; you only want the colored part. The white stuff is bitter and nasty. A little is alright, but a lot can ruin your food.

Now that that's settled, here are the sweet potato muffins. The only real change I made was to use all whole wheat instead of the negligible amount suggested in the recipe. It was a risky move, since too much whole wheat can make your baked goods dense and kind of nasty. But they were as fluffy and delicious as ever. Also, her mixing was kind of fussy and it sounded like you need to use a million different bowls so I just did the classic baking method: I mixed the dry ingredients together and in a separate bowl I creamed the butter and sugar, added the eggs and vanilla. Then I chucked everything together in one bowl (I usually add the dry ingredients to the wet), mixed it all together, and all was well. 

And finally, because I can't eat a muffin without thinking of this episode of Seinfeld, here's this: