Colossal Apple & Walnut Muffins

Combine apples and walnuts and you have a winning recipe. My husband says that “Colossal Apple & Walnut Muffins” are my best muffins yet! And this is a “one bowl’ recipe — easy to mix up. Eat them for breakfast with a cup of coffee or for a snack in the afternoon. The goal of this cooking session was to use some of the apples which I had dehydrated using my friend’s food dehydrator. For this recipe, I rehydrated the apple slices; they are still full of aromatic flavors. Yeah! I located a simple muffin recipe and added in the apples and walnuts. The muffins are dense and moist and sort of addictive. I baked them in a jumbo muffin tin; the recipe makes six colossal muffins.

A friend gifted me her no longer needed — but brand new — food dehydrator. I experimented with drying apples in the food dehydrator; it worked really well and now have dried apple slices. Unfortunately, my dehydrated apples are like beef jerky — leathery and chewy. I didn’t want to waste my effort in dehydrating the applies; so I got busy rehydrated some of them to use in cooked apple recipes. Here the flavor of the apples shine.

I adapted a recipe in the Allrecipes Magazine, “Fall Recipes 2022,” for my muffins. Although I used dried apples — fresh apples will work, too, just chop them finely. The recipe called for baking the batter using jumbo muffin tins, what fun!

Healthy Recipe Ingredients

In addition to apples, this recipe includes walnuts — one of my favorite nuts! Walnuts contain heart healthy unsaturated fats. Apples have fiber and anti-oxidants, too. I used soft margarine rather than butter in the recipe. (The struesel topping does contain butter.) Guilt-free muffins? Why, yes indeed.

Recipe

I simplified the recipe to mix the batter in a “one bowl” process. Using self-rising flour (rather than all-purpose flour, baking powder, soda and salt) helps make things even more simple. Of course, you do need to rehydrate the dried apples and toast and chop the walnuts. Get them ready first. Then mixing up the muffins is so easy.

To rehydrate dried apples, cover them with water and let them sit in the refrigerator for six hours to overnight. Not difficult, just plan ahead.

I also toasted the walnuts in the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees to bring out the aromatic flavor of the nuts. These whole walnuts needed to be chopped further — an easy task with a kitchen knife or small food chopper.

To make the recipe, add the liquid ingredients (melted margarine, sugars, vanilla extract) to a large bowl and mix with a wire whip to combine. Then add in the eggs and milk. Mix in the self-rising flour. Using a spatula, gently fold in the chopped walnuts and chopped apples.

Make sure to spray both the top of the muffiin tin and the cups of a six-cup jumbo muffin tin with PAM cooking spray or alternately use vegetable oil. These muffins overflow the tops of the cups. Portion the muffin batter into the cups.

Sprinkle on a struesel topping made by combining flour, butter, sugar and cinnamon. Bake.

Once baked, run a knife around the top edges and also loosen the bottoms of the cups, gently remove from the muffin tins. No need to ice these muffins, the struesel topping adds a little sweetness

These muffins make a very tasty fall snack. Delicious. They disappeared quickly! A great way to use all those dehydrated apples.

Ripe apples in autumn

Fall is the time when apples are at their peak — so many varieties are available. Get ready to use fresh apples in recipes. Several years ago, we went apple picking at an orchard in upstate New York. It was hard to stop picking apples!

Now, there — I had an excess of apples. Where was the food dehydrator back then?

Alas, no apple orchards here in Louisiana. We just don’t have the cold winters needed for apple trees to thrive. After living in MIchigan and visiting in upstate New York, I am spoiled. I love all the aromatic varieties of apples which are available in farmers markets and fresh apple cider squeezed right at the orchards. I see newer varieties of apples in our grocery stores — Jazz, Honey Crisp, Envy — and am learning to like them too.

This is a great muffin recipe for using autumn apples and walnuts. Enjoy!