Bad Apple Baking

With more of the offending apples sitting in the fruit basket on the counter taunting me I had to do something. Seriously, they have been laughing at me every morning when I make my coffee.
Alessa and I had already decided we were going to make some Apple Turnovers, but we had 8 apples left and that would have filled our freezer with dessert, so we needed a few more options.
After getting home from working at Weight Watchers today I went on the search for more uses of the apples. I had muffins on the brain.
After taking the dogs out, I logged on and entered my search criteria on one of my favorite recipe sites www.allrecipes.com The selections were rather slim and pretty much the same basic recipe.
Among some of the interesting items in our cupboards, we have a bag of Flax Seeds, I thought I'd give baking with them a try. Once again I entered some search criteria, I found 1 recipe with Apples, Flax seed and whole wheat flour, but it called for a bunch of other things it called for and I didn't have any of them. Instead of utilizing any of these recipes and having plain old ordinary apple spice muffins, or going to the store for more ingredients, I got ambitious and created my own.

It will need a bit of tweaking to get it just right, but mighty impressive for a first attempt I must say.
We now have some VERY high fiber muffins sitting in the freezer for a grab 'n' go breakfast.

Here is my truly original recipe., I've named it:


Hearty Harvest Breakfast Muffins
1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 1/2 c Flax Seed (ground slightly)
1/2 c bleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp Cinammon
1 tsp Allspice
1 1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
3 eggs
1 c milk (I used soymilk)
1 c sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp Orange extract
1/4 c Canola oil
2-3 cups diced apples

In a medium mixing bowl combine the first seven ingredients (all the dry except sugar). In a larger mixing bowl, add the eggs and beat slightly, add the applesauce, milk vanilla, orange extract, canola oil. Mix together. Add all the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with a spoon. Mix in the apples. it will of course be thick and slightly lumpy.

Use a large muffin tin with baking cup liners. not the dinky size muffin tin but the jumbo ones. Fill the cups between 3/4 and all the way full.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

I got 18 of the big muffins from this recipe.


The flavor was decent and the texture was good, dense, but still soft. They did stick to the muffin liners, so I think I'll use cooking spray on them next time.

The modifications I am considering highlighted in purple:

1 c whole wheat flour
1 c Flax Seed (ground slightly)
1 c bleached flour
2 tsp baking powder (possibly 1 tsp baking soda instead)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp Cinammon
2 tsp Allspice
1 1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs
1 c milk (I used soymilk)
1 c sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp Orange extract
1/2 c Canola oil
2-3 cups diced apples

If this mixture is too dry I'm planning on increasing the applesauce.


In case you noticed the mention of turnovers, this was a very simple process of refrigerated pie dough and a quick homemade apple pie filling recipe. whick we decided to add some candied ginger too.


Apple Turnovers

4 TBS Butter
2 C Brown Sugar
1/4 c chopped candied ginger
2 cups diced apples
2 TBS uncooked tapioca

In a skillet, on med-high heat melt the butter. Add the apples and cook for about 1 minute, add the candied ginger and cook another minute. Add the brown sugar and bring to a boil remove from the heat and add the tapioca, mix together.

I cut smaller rounds out of the pie crusts and then place about 2-3 TBS of the filling on 1 side then folded the dough over the top and sealed the edges by pressing the seams together. I sprayed the tops with cooking spray and sprinkled cinammon sugar on top. Baked at 450 for 15 minutes.


We are now heading for apple overload! Even after all that, we still have 2 cups of diced apples left. They are now sitting in the freezer......
Any ideas?