Applesauce Muffins

I love Fall.  One of the things I love most about fall is football.

Uh, football?  Deb, did you just say "football"?

Yes, yes, I did.  Because that makes me a "football widow" for a while, and I enjoy using that time to bake and make fun football watching food.  Don't get me wrong!  I enjoy watching football, too.  For example, as I'm typing this, Oklahoma is beating up on West Virginia in Oklahoma.  Now I come from a long line of OU family, so there is no doubt where my loyalties lie, but have you ever noticed the OU stadium full of fans on "Stripe the Stadium" day - which today is?  Kinda fun.  Fans with tix in odd-numbered sections are asked to wear white, and fans with tix in even-numbered sections are asked to wear red...er, I mean "crimson."  Now, as G said, the white section looks a little like muddy or speckled white, but overall, it's rather fun, and looks pretty cool.  So of course I like watching the football game!

Today I made some applesauce muffins...cause fall...and football...and applesauce on hand...and we be doing some apple pickin' tomorrow!  We got a family pic of apple pickin' two years ago...

...but we failed to get one last year.  (Gotta remedy that!)  Even so, here is one of my favorite pics from last year...cause apple orchard...cause aunt and nephew...cause two grand babies are in this pic...cause love...

As I'm looking through my files to find these pics, I realized that I posted an applesauce muffin recipe last year here so I really don't need to post about the ones I made today.  Since I forgot about those, I haven't done a side-by-side test to know which one I like better, but I would say that they are each good.  I didn't do the butter/maple syrup emulsion for these today, I did something different for the topping this time, but we will get to that in a bit.  First off the muffin recipe - and no pics of putting them together, cause they are super simple!

Muffins
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup oil (and now I'm out!)
1-1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
Splash of vanilla
2 cups applesauce (I used G's homemade yummy goodness!)
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
Scant 1/4 teaspoon cloves (or to taste if you're a big cloves fan!)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional, I didn't on these)

Cream the butter, oil and sugars together until smooth and creamy.  Add eggs, vanilla and applesauce and mix well.  

Combine all dry ingredients and then add to wet on low speed, mixing until combined, scraping mixer bowl occasionally.

Scoop into muffin liners, and bake at 350 for 20 - 25 minutes.  (I got 24 regular muffins plus 16 mini-muffins from this amount.)  Cool 5 minutes and then remove from pan.

Topping:
1/4 cup butter
3 T. sugar
1 - 2 t. cinnamon
Splash of vanilla
Dash of salt
Additional cinnamon sugar mixture

Melt the butter and add the sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt to the butter.  Dip the tops of the warm muffins into the butter mixture and then dip in cinnamon sugar.

You will get different results based on whether you don't dip at all (upper left), dip in the less amount of cinnamon (lower right) or the higher amount of cinnamon (lower left).  Any option is yummy!  I also believe that these will be even better tomorrow since fruit breads/muffins improve with a bit of resting time.  Plus these will freeze very well for a quick breakfast when needed!

How did I happen to come up with that particular topping combo?  Well, if you are a Pioneer Woman fan, you may recognize this as her cinnamon toast spread.  I tried her method today, and I get it.  I'm not sure I would take those steps every time I wanted cinnamon toast, but the vanilla and the baking plus broiling steps make for a nice toast, no doubt.  But hey, I had some left over...so...why not?  I melted that yummy goodness and started dipping!

There is one more baking trick I want to pass along in case you haven't heard this before.  Here are the mini muffins right out of the oven.  You may not be able to see it immediately but the eight wells in the middle all have water in them.  I have done this for years to help even out the baking if I make muffins or cupcakes and don't have enough batter for all of the wells.  It reduces chances of hot spots and over browning for the muffins next to the empty wells.

Could these mini ones be much cuter?

Well...after dipping them especially!

OK there is one way....by being in the hands of a grand kiddo ready to munch one down!  I will try to snap a pic of that when we are in the apple orchard!

(I love the phrase apple orchard.  It just sounds so pleasing and cool and crisp and sweet and country and abundant.)

Happy Fall!