Applesauce Muffins
Ingredients
- 188 g Flour (Plain)
- 3/4 t baking soda
- 1/2 t ground nutmeg
- 1/2 t ground cinnamon
- 1/4 t ground cloves
- 1/4 t Salt (Table)
- 51 g shortening
- 181 g honey
- 3/4 c apple sauce (unsweetened)
- 3/4 c raisins (seedless)
- 22 g chopped walnuts (optional, scant 1/4 cup)
Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease cupcake pans or use with paper cupcake liners.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients. In a separate bowl (large), beat shortening with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add honey and continue mixing for 2 minutes. Stop the mixer once or twice to scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add half of the applesauce and half of the dry ingredients. Mix at medium speed until all the flour disappears. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl once or twice. Add remaining applesauce and dry ingredients. Mix until blended. Stir in the nuts and raisins with a wooden spoon.
3. Spoon batter into the cupcake pan, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Let cool on wire racks in the pans for 10 minutes, then remove to cool completely on racks. Frost or leave plain (maybe with a sifting of powdered sugar). My personal favorite is cream cheese frosting, but if you want to keep this dairy free, a vanilla buttercream prepared with margarine instead of butter is delicious as well.
Notes
Note to self: I want to try this half with shortening and half with butter and see if there's a noticeable difference between the two when I make it.
SJ Note 26 July 2010: These are good! We had them with whipped cream, which came out tasty. I just did the shortening; the amounts are too small to halve successfully.
SJ Note 1 Sept 2015: I like these, though they're much more like muffins than cupcakes (I didn't frost them, but I can't see that that'd make much difference). Chris doesn't like them. I've changed the name accordingly.