Comunidad Health Foods

I'm very good at creating names for recipes, no? But really, the title of this post says it all: amidst all of the apple goodness I've been gabbing on about, these really do take the cake. Or top the cake, whatever that saying is. The point is, they're good. Really good. And they are so enormously bursting with fall that your belly will have its own private autumn party once it realizes what delights you have just fed it. What's more, I would actually be able to justify eating these muffins for breakfast, whereas I place most of the other muffin recipes I've seen in my cupcake folder. Seriously, take a look: whole wheat flour - check! olive/canola oil - check! actual fruit - check! low fat dairy - check! modest amounts of sugar (but in somewhat sneaky forms) - check! See, it's really not so bad. Definitely a breakfast "splurge" compared to my usual kashi + lowfat milk/yogurt + fruit, but it also won't be sending me running for the treadmill at record speed, or really any speed at all.

These apple cider muffins have gotten everyone's stamp of approval and L, in particular, enjoys them immensely. The recipe is actually supposed to make donuts, but as I've yet to get my hands on one of those cool donut pans, I decided to give it a shot in muffin-form, muffin tins being the closest contraption I had to a donut pan. I will, of course, try these out as they were meant to be when my restraint gives in and I buy myself more kitchen equipment (or the holiday gift gods endow me with wonderful goodies next month), but if you're like me and all you have are some muffin tins, do. not. wait. They are beyond moist, and rolling them in a cinnamon-sugar mixture - though a little weirder for a muffin than a doughnut - adds this slight crunch that really can't be beat. They aren't super sweet, in fact I'd call them pretty mild, but man could I eat a whole batch of them.

My one and only complaint, okay well maybe the first of two complaints, is the salt. I know, I know, I really need to stop on my salt rampage at some point, and I've likely gone psychotic with how stubborn I am about limiting my intake (I promise you that I do consume a decent amount - well over the minimal amount required for your body to not go kaput on you). But I added half the amount of salt, since I wasn't using any salted butter or really any food sources of sodium at all...and I taste it. No one else has complained of it, so maybe you should make it the way the recipe intends, and leave me to my deranged salt-free existence, but I can taste it when I bite into the muffin. It's this very vague, subtle flavor - certainly an entirely different beast than taking a handful of potato chips or biting into a pickle; rather, it tastes a little bit like you've been inhaling ocean air for an afternoon and the taste just kind of...lingers. I've experienced this before with foods, so next time I will try eliminating the salt altogether and just see if it changes it.

The second complaint is that I baked them without cupcake liners, just greasing the pan with some olive oil because, as I've mentioned before, it's all I really keep on hand aside from butter. But you see, olive oil has a fairly low smoke point, and whether or not this is indeed the culprit, my muffin exterior that came in contact with the pan was just a teensy bit browner than I would like. This could also be a result of my having kinda dark muffin tins, though I think I baked these the second time entirely on lighter metal pans. So I'm going with the no liners thing. You don't really notice it when you bite into it, but you can see that the outside edges are darker. Like I said, the salt thing was my only real complaint. And even that might be a figment of my imagination.

Moral of the story? Bake these. They don't require much apple, though I have upped the amount and will either do so again next time or leave even more in larger chunks. I just can't get enough of that! You probably have all of the ingredients on hand except the apples (and maybe apple cider and maple syrup, and maybe yogurt, but I think those three are all pretty standard at this time of year - maybe?) and they're super easy to make. Anything that doesn't require me to whip out my hand mixer is a winner in my book. Although you probably could use a real mixer if it pleased you. But really, even with mixing it all by hand, the most labor intensive part is chopping the apples, and - sshh! - you can totally use a food processor for that.


Apple Cider Muffin-Donuts, courtesy of Squirrel Bakes
Yield: Almost 2 dozen muffins, closer to 18
The Ingredients

When I grow up, I want to live in a town small enough that I can bake my own Halloween goodies for trick or treaters, and not be looked at like a monster trying to poison our darling youths with anthrax-infused candy apples. Don't get me wrong, I love candy as much as the next American, but I love baking even more, and having an excuse to dole out said baked goods. Plus, it's just so much more festive, creative, and interesting to give out a homemade confection. But alas, trust in this world is all but obsolete. Even I have been trained to fall into this trap of cynicism. I remember just after 9/11, going trick or treating to this one house where a woman opened the door with an apron on, offering us (if memory serves me correctly, which it has been known to not do) candy apples or regular candy. My entire group gossiped about how she was so clearly cooking up some poison to inject our candy with. What darling children we were, right? Poor woman - all she did was offer us a nice, homemade treat, and even at 11 or 12 years old, all we could say of her was that she was obviously trying to kill us. Happy Halloween!

Basically, all of that is to say, I am skeptical that my dream of having a white picket fence and a dog and cat and kids and hubby, opening the door on Halloween Night in my own finest apron, letting the smell of cinnamon and apples waft out to the trick-or-treaters, and offering them my best sugary concoction I can muster that year...well, I'm skeptical that this will ever happen. This year, to try to come as close as possible to this lofty dream, I have retreated to my parent's small mountain home for the weekend - and, yes, I baked my little heart out. It's really for a bake sale for my college's student dietetic association, so I guess that's pretty close to handing it out to trick or treaters. Just minus the cute costumes, and plus a little price tag on each scone and muffin we dole out.

I have yet to make the apple muffins (that's on the menu for tonight), but the apple scones are baked, cooled, and individually wrapped. Unfortunately, this means I have no pictures of them (no camera). I will do my best tonight to get a little photo shoot going and edit this post, but if you really want to know how wonderful they look, head on over here to see the ones that the original blogger took.

I really hesitate to call these scones at all. They lack the firmness that a scone should have, and the dough was really more of a batter than anything else. Essentially, they turn to be delectable little apple cake slices, with just a little bit more body. The recipe claims the dough will be wet, so I don't think that I necessarily did anything wrong (except, perhaps, use more than half all purpose flour, which absorbs less liquid than whole wheat, and bake them in a higher altitude than usual). If you find that your dough/batter is as liquidy as I did, you might be better off making these drop scones; but if you find that I have just made a teensy blunder and yours are the picture of perfection, go right ahead and make them as the recipe states. Either way, you'll wind up with a baked good that tastes delicious and a house that smells like fall. Not too shabby, eh?

Apple Scone Cakes, courtesy of Acquired Taste
Yield: 16, apparently, but I doubled it and got 24...and probably shouldn't have even stretched it that much.
The Ingredients
2C flour, half whole wheat (mine was more of a 3:1 ratio because...well, it was just more convenient at the time)
¼C sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt (omitted, salted butter)
½C butter, cold and cut into pieces
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 apples, peeled and cut into small pieces (I used about 7 smaller ones when I doubled it)
1 egg
½C milk (I used 1%)
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. brown sugar


The Method
1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and 3/4 of the cinnamon in a large bowl - though I wouldn't complain much in eating one of these with all of the cinnamon added here, and even more added later on...
2. Add in the butter with your hands, using a pinching motion to create a sandy-textured mixture. This should take around 5 minutes.
3. Add the apple pieces and be sure to incorporate fully.
4. Meanwhile, beat together the egg, milk, and lemon juice. I used a fork and my poor wrist because we lack the finer luxuries of a fancy mixer or even a whisk, but I think it did the trick just fine. Not that I would choose to do it again if I had another tool handy.
5. Pour the liquids into the apple mixture gradually, taking time between additions to mix thoroughly. This is where the recipe assures you that the dough should be very wet. Check.
6. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead 4-5 times. Ha! A video clip of me trying to need this batter would be one of the most ludicrous scenes you've seen in a long time, I can assure you. If you would call your "dough" a "batter," please do us all a favor, and skip this step, as I so foolishly did not.
7. Transfer the dough to a well-oiled (but not excessive) baking sheet or pizza pan - or, again, if you have a batter, just put it straight from the bowl to here. Using your hands or the back of a spoon/spatula, pat the dough into a 1/2" tall round, and cut into 8-16 slices. I found that 8 produced very appropriate scones, but I suppose that 16 would work, too.
8. Sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon over the top, as I so carelessly forgot to do and instead rushed halfway through the baking process, and bake for 15-20 minutes (or until the tops are a nice, golden brown). I found that 20 minutes was even a little bit too short, so I took them out, separated them from the circle they made, and baked them even more. And probably could've baked them longer still. Like I said, using the "drop scone" method would have made my life much easier yesterday.

All in all, I can't complain about them. They may not have turned out as a typical scone should, and scone conoisseurs all over would flock to criticize this product. But to any person who just likes apples and cinnamon baked together, this is sure to please. It's light, definitely not dry, and very enjoyable. Hopefully the people at the bake sale tomorrow think so, too!

Happy Halloween!