Ingredients:
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup full-fat vanilla Greek yogurt
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup coarse cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch ground anise
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon mace
2/3 cup light brown sugar
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Line or grease and flour 12 wells in a muffin tin.
In a large bowl, mix (using a mixer or a big spoon) all ingredients together until a thick batter forms. Divide evenly among the wells in the muffin tin. Bake 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the center muffin comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Cool on a wire rack.
My thoughts:
Matt’s been working his way through the last few muffins we’ve made (orange-oatmeal, zucchini-walnut I made, and the sweet potato cornbread he made) so it was time to make a new batch.
I haven’t made so many muffins in years! I was trying to think of some different flavors to keep it interesting and end up making these. I hate applesauce but my husband will eat it, especially when he isn’t feeling well or if no fruit is really in season. We had a big jug of it in the fridge taking up a lot of room that he hasn’t been eating lately. I really wanted to use up before it went bad. Applesauce is great in muffins because it keeps them really moist which I think helps them freeze better than muffins with a drier crumb. It’s also great to have on hand for muffins because it’s shelf-stable and thus always in-season unlike berries or even citrus or whole apples.
Matt had bought a 2 lb container of Cabot triple cream vanilla Greek yogurt by mistake and found it a little too rich so I thought that would be a good way to add some protein and flavor to the muffins and help us use it up. We are planning to go grocery shopping (hopefully for enough groceries for the next 3-4 weeks) this week so freeing up fridge and freezer space is really at the forefront of my mind. It’s been 27 days since we’ve bought groceries so I know anything still in our fridge is getting pretty old! I hate waste so I’m in “use all the scraps” mode right now.
My first impulse was to use buckwheat flour in these muffins but apparently, we don’t have any so I subbed in some cornmeal. It wasn’t quite enough cornmeal that I’d consider them to be cornbread muffins but it adds a little extra oompf and substance to the muffins. Not to mention a light corn flavor and fiber.
