Apple and honey muffins

It is fair to say that Mr Cooking with kids isn’t the family cook. He does make a mean chocolate muffin, though, and these apple and honey muffins are adapted from his recipe.

For the last few months we’ve kept our fruit bowl on the dining table to encourage the kids to eat fruit. The upside is that they do reach for these healthy foods much more often now. The downside is that our youngest has been known to start eating an apple or pear and then change her mind and put it back in the bowl for another unsuspecting family member to pick up. Today we found a salvageable apple and I decided to do some cooking with it.

In an attempt to make a healthier snack these cakes use honey instead of refined sugar. I was able to reduce the content (using 50g honey instead of the 75g sugar that the original recipe called for). What I didn’t think about until after I’d made these was that sugar helps a cake to rise in a way that honey doesn’t. For those of you who are interested, when sugar is mixed into a cake mixture it traps tiny bits of air, which expand when they are heated during cooking, helping the cake to rise. The next time I make these (and I will be making them again soon) I’ll add 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda to help it rise.

The lack of air in these muffins didn’t stop them tasting delicious, though. I dished them out to the kids before tasting them myself and the immediate reaction was ‘mmmm’. Success! 😊 These tasty treats are moist in the middle and firm on the outside. They had the perfect level of sweetness for us and the apple pieces added to the texture.

Apple browns quickly when its flesh is exposed. It doesn’t affect the taste but if you are a slow baker and don’t want brown apple in your muffins splash some lemon juice over the apple once you’ve chopped it.

Ingredients

Makes 6 muffins

• 100g flour
• 50g margarine
• 50g honey (we used runny honey)
• 1 medium-large eating apple
• 1 large egg
• 85ml milk
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Heat your oven to 180°C and put 6 paper cases into a muffin tray.
2. Peel the apple and roughly chop into cubes.
   

   

   
3. Sift the flour, bicarb and cinnamon into a mixing bowl, then add all the other ingredients.
4. Mix for a minute or two at medium speed, until the batter is smooth.
5. Evenly share the muffin mix between the paper cases, then cook for 20-25 minutes (check after 20 minutes).
   

   

   
6. Once cooked take the muffins out of the tray and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

Any muffins that you don’t eat straight away can be stored in an airtight container for a few days.

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