Apple and cinnamon muffins – Nigella Kitchen

This baking challenge is actually quite an old one that I didn’t get round to blogging about. But, in order to take New Year’s Day off from baking I thought I’d update using this recipe. These were easily one of the tastiest bake I made in 2010, and, even better I didn’t feel guilty eating them.

This was my first time using spelt flour, which I picked up at my local deli. Nigella is quick to point out in her book that a muffin should be different from a cupcake, most especially in the sugar department. The spelt flour really helps with this as it leaves the muffin with a gorgeous, nutty almost-but-not-quite savoury flavour.

Then you’re hit with a gorgeously sharp and sweet at the same time chunk of apple (I used one pink lady and one gala – my two favourite varieties) and that’s really all the sweetness you need. Of course there’s a touch of (brown) sugar in the mixture too, but that’s really to lift out of the breakfast muffin variety I suppose, and I wager you could probably get away with leaving it out if you were after something even more virtuous.

Making these muffins was a doddle. Regular readers will now by know my penchant for chuck it in a bowl method and I’m afraid this was another example of that. Well almost, you did have to use two bowls, one for dry ingredients and one for wet before pushing it all together.

Now Nigella claims this mix is only enough to make 12 muffins. I can’t quite figure out if she has a large muffin tin or I did something else wrong as this easily made 20. Maybe if I’d put more mixture into each case I’d have ended up with giant muffins – but I’m always a little wary of filling a case to the top in case it’s too much and the thing explodes out of the top and joins up with all the other muffins.

Anyway…. drifting away from the point there. After about 20 minutes in the oven they looked ready. Out they came onto the wire rack. And they looked marvellous. Exactly how muffins are supposed to look, and I thought, by jove I’ve actually gone and baked something to perfection.

Of course, being me, I was wrong. Naturally. I came back 5 minutes later to find the muffins had all sank in quite a sad little way. Reading Nigella though she points out that this happens to almost every home-baked muffin and to be expect otherwise is just setting yourself up for disappointment. So with that in mind, I went merrily on my way.

When it came to tasting these muffins I was delighted. As I said previously these were easily one of the tastiest things I’ve ever baked. I’m not  100% sure what did it for me exactly but I could have eaten a few of these in one sitting. I think it’s because, as contradictory as it would seem for someone with a baking blog, I’m actually more of a savoury person, so these hit the spot extremely well.

My co-workers who tasted these some weeks ago all seemed to agree too – although whether they were just sparing my blushes, I’m never sure.

Here’s the usual:

Taste: 4.5/5 Obviously I loved these, I suppose my only minor criticism is the amount of almonds that go in the mixture. Not being the biggest nut-fan in the world, there was perhaps a bit more than I’d have liked.

Difficulty: 2/5 Pretty easy, but as mentioned, don’t expect these to look like the muffins you see in Starbucks.

Amendments: None

Chance of remake: Absolutely definitely – I’m salivating just thinking about it.

This week’s recipe comes from the latest book by Nigella Lawson – Nigella Kitchen. You can find it in the book, or you could try this spelt flour muffin recipe from Food.com