Peanut Butter Apple Muffins

The muffinocolypse is over with this post, promise promise. I COULD have sold out to COMMERCIALIZZZZM and done a Valentine’s day post, but considering that my V-Day plans look like this:
1) Go to church in the morning
2) Go to the “New to Unitarian Universalism” class after church
3) Drink myself into an oblivion (hey, it’ll be the afternoon so that’s okay)

I am not exactly in the Valentine’s day spirit. So, anyways. Muffins!

I based it off of the banana muffin recipe from the previous post. And, seriously? Can we talk for just a minute about my atrocious handwriting? Because I don’t know where that came from. Honest, look at my mom’s handwriting:

Man, the 1950s. Nothing teaches kids good penmanship better than Communist witch hunts and widespread discrimination against minorities.

But enough. Here’s what you need for dese MUFFINS. Except for butter and honey. And peanuts. Please note that my mother buys prune yogurt. This is the house I grew up in, folks.

Measure a 1/4 cup of peanut butter, put it in a bowl.

Add a 1/4 cup of yogurt to the bowl. It does not have to be prune, although that does not affect the taste at all (no, really, PRUNE YOGURT? It’s about a month later and my mind, it is still blown).

And you’re also going to want to put in 1/2 cup of applesauce and one egg. From a chicken. No people eggs, please.

Mix it up with a whisk (or whatever, I just am in love with whisks) and add in 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar.

Spices: Probably why I’m still alive today. 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon allspice. I just eyeball it though, but I also have mental illness (true story! I’ll tell you some time).

Once you’ve whisked that all together, add in your flour. Stir JUST until combined, or everyone will hate your tunneled, glutenous muffins, as well as YOU, by association.

Fold in your diced apple. It should be a cup; this cup is half full. But I’m still a pessimist.

Divide evenly amongst 12 muffin greased or lined muffin cups. Or, um, ten? I only got ten, but there’s no way that twelve wouldn’t work; that just would involve a mind capable of equal portioning, which I don’t have.

Bake at 350° F for twenty minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean.

Oh, muffin. At least you’ll be my valentine.

Peanut Butter Apple Muffins
1 cup diced apple
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup yogurt
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Whisk together all of the wet ingredients (this includes the sugar) except for the apple. Add in the spices and the baking soda, and then stir in the flour until just combined. Fold in the apple. Divide amongst twelve greased or lined muffin cups, and bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool enough to handle, and then remove from the tin to avoid soggy bottoms.

Banana Gingerbread Muffins

HEY! WHO LEFT A BAG OF POOP ON MY CLEAN COUNTERS?

Sorry, but we’ve been doing digestion in my Nutrition class, and my retiring-this-year professor decided we needed to spend ten minutes on why one says “elimination” and “waste products” and not “crappity crap crappington.”

I mentioned in my first post that I had been making too many dang muffins. I have a Muffin Problem. A tasty, tasty problem.

My dad proclaimed these muffins as “They’re good, sweetie!” which he says about everything I make, but he pleaded with me to take half of the batch home with me, since my mom is allergic to bananas (I know, CRAZY) and he didn’t want to finish the entire batch by himself. He then bought a giant tub of cookies at Stop and Shop, so take whatever he says with a grain of salt (God love that man and his affinity with fatty, highly processed foods).

I adapted this recipe from a banana muffin recipe I found on epicurious.com. I could search for it, but my bedtime is in fifteen minutes! How do you expect me to get my required nine hours of sleep? I am a growing girl, despite what my height and weight chart says!

Banana Gingerbread Muffins
Makes one dozen

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 1/4 cups mashed banana (see note)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons molasses

Note: I roasted my bananas in the skin at 350° F until the skin was black, but if you wanted to forgo this step I’m sure it wouldn’t be a disaster.

Preheat oven to 350° F. Lube up a muffin tin, or use liners, if you’re one of those people.

Stir together the butter and the sugars until combined. Add in the egg, the milk, and the banana, stirring until combined. Add the molasses, stir one more time. Add the salt, the baking soda, and the spices; stir. Add in the flour and stir until just moistened. Divide amongst twelve greased muffin cups. Bake at 350° F for about 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from the muffin tin as soon as they are cool enough to handle.

These will keep for at least a week, but if you want to enjoy one now with the morning paper, I won’t be the one to stop you.

this bread is CORNY

I love corn. I think it is because I grew up in New England, and you only get good corn for such a brief period of time. Like, in July, when the snow finally melts.

I kid, I kid. SO FAR AS YOU KNOW

Anyways, because I am from New England, I am incapable of making authentic corn bread. I don’t even own a decent-sized cast-iron skillet! I mean, we have one, but it is four inches in diameter. I don’t know what it’s for.

This bread was pretty good to my Yankee taste buds, and it quelled any and all urges I may have had to dump tea into Boston Harbor, or throw rocks at British soldiers and spark a massacre (and thus ends my New England historical knowledge). I adapted it from Kitchen Scraps’ basic muffin formula. Oh, yeah. I made cornbread out of muffin batter. This is why my Virginian relatives don’t invite us to visit anymore.

Mix together the carrot, butter, milk, egg, honey, and salt. It looks kind of gross, I’m sorry about that. Also I was using my mom’s point-and-shoot (as opposed to my point-and-shoot) at night, so dese pictures is terrible.

Helloooo, dry team! Here we have corn meal, baking powder, baking soda, and, um, nutmeg. Look, I have a problem- okay, I have a lot of problems, but this one particular problem is that I add nutmeg to a lot of places it maybe should not go. I did not add it to the ingredient list because I wanted to make a good impression, but if you want to bring nutmeg to the party (and nutmeg sure would like to come!) then I’d add anywhere between 1/8 of a teaspoon to a 1/4 teaspoon. Oh, pssst. I added the flour after this, but that really made this look like someone had been ill, so I omitted that picture. You’re welcome.

Oh boy, kids, will you look at the clock? It’s cheese time! Add in one cup, as if your life depended on it.

Pour it into a greased 8-inch pan because you don’t own a nine-inch pan, and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350° F. Obviously, you could divide this evenly into twelve muffin tins and make muffins instead, but I had already made two batches of muffins that day and I was afraid if I made any more my parents would put me into therapy. Again.

Full disclosure: I baked these for 25 minutes and they were a little soft, if you like your foods more robust (I like mine wimpy, it makes me feel better about myself in comparison), for sure bake this longer.

Serve on only your FINEST Thomas the Tank Engine plastic plates, with a side of nothing. Because you’ve already had two bowls of Cheez-its and you’re kind of full.

Carrot Corn Muffin Bread
Adapted from Kitchen Scraps
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup shredded cheese
1 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter
1 egg
1 1/2 cups shredded carrot (I used the food processor)
1/2 t salt
2 tablespoons honey

Mix together the milk, butter, egg, carrot, salt, and honey. Add the dry ingredients (you could sift these if you’re feeling ambitious) to the wet, and mix until combined. Add the cheese, mix until combined. Pour into an 8×8 inch greased pan, and bake at 350º Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes. Let cool enough to handle the pan, then slice into 16 pieces and either serve warm or cool on a cooling rack. Because this is basically muffin batter you should probs not cool these in the pan, or you’ll get soggy bottoms. If you already have a soggy bottom, I don’t want to know.