Attack of the Franken-Apple-Muffins!

What started as a simple quest to use my extra, about-to-be-too-ripe, apples, ended with an abundance of tasty baked goods and an interesting recipe for Apple-streudal type muffins. Originally starting with Cook’s Illustrated Apple Crumble recipe, I quickly discovered I had too many apples and not enough ‘crumble-type dishware’, so I found that combining the extra crumble ingredients with Mark Ruhlman’s Basic Quick Bread ratio yielded not only a quick fix but a moist, light, and delicious muffin. I expect that you could swap in a different types of fruit, with relevant seasonings, to get your preferred franken-muffin experience.

Here's the franken-muffins, pre-pan dissection. See more details after the jump.

Since I used the same batch of apples for both the crumble and the muffins, they were prepared the same way. Baking the apples before use in the muffins led to tender chunks of nicely seasoned fruit. The pre-baking prep involved coating the apples in a cornstarch-lemon juice mixture with some sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg: no surprises here, though I’m sure you could add some allspice and other such spices to get your standard ‘apple pie spice’ mixture. After coating, bake in oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit in an aluminum foil covered pan for about 20 minutes.

The Crumble topping recipe can be found below. Using a food processer definitely speeds things up, and even my little Cuisinart mini-prep plus was up to the task. Since I’m not a huge fan of almonds, I replaced them with walnuts for a pretty satisfying result. After baking, the crumble topping looking more like tasty landmasses spreading across my baking sheet than what I’d imagine the word crumble to look like; they required a bit more breaking up for use in the muffins, but not too much for the Crumble proper.

Ruhlman’s Quick Bread ratio is 2 parts flour: 2 parts liquid: 1 part egg: 1 part butter. Variations can be made to this basic ratio, such as incorporating baking powder, sugar, and salt, but I started on the simple side of things. I used milk as my liquid.

Now, I have a tendency to forget some directions, no matter how many times I read the recipe, so I rediscovered why it’s important to grease your muffin pans. Don’t forget this step...it can really kill your presentation, let alone your pride when you have to carry around your amazing “muffin pieces” to friends at work. After pouring in the batter, I dropped some apple pieces across the pan and topped it off with

Other than forgetting to grease the pan, I followed the baking instructions from Ruhlman’s Quick Bread/Muffin recipe, and baked the muffins for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. After a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, take them out and enjoy!


Apple Crumble Topping from Cooks Illustrated:

• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar (light of dark)
• 1/8 teaspoon table salt
• 1/8 teaspoon table salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces and very soft
• 1/2 cup almonds/walnuts

Combine flour, sugars (reserving 1 tablespoon granulated sugar), and salt in workbowl of food processor; drizzle vanilla over top. Pulse to combine. Add butter and half of nuts; process until mixture clumps together into large, crumbly balls, about 30 seconds, pausing halfway through to scrape down sides of workbowl. Sprinkle remaining nuts over mixture and combine with a few quick pulses. Transfer mixture to parchment-lined baking sheet and spread into even layer (mixture should break up into roughly 1/2-inch chunks, with some smaller, loose bits). Bake topping until chunks are lightly browned and firm, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven.