AWOL doesn’t even begin to describe how I’ve been with the blog since Vegan MoFo ended. I got burnt out, ya’ll. All I’ve posted since then is one delicious (but really terribly photographed) cupcake recipe. I considered making an empty promise of updating twice a week from now on, but as always, I’m just gonna have to play it by ear and see what happens.
Things around the YIV household have been good, but hectic. I threw down a couple of long work weeks recently; J has been busy preparing for a conference, but not too busy to learn his lesson about blindly substituting whole wheat flour for white flour in a batch of sugar cookies (I made some extremely bad jokes about this):
Yesterday it rained several inches (I don’t really get how they measure that, but just trust me that it rained a crap ton) and I biked home in a heavy downpour and through flooded streets. Needless to say, after wringing out my clothes, hair and panniers enough to not flood our apartment, I was ready to a) do nothing for the rest of the night and b) make some super comforting autumn baked goods.
We’re still finding various ways to use up the 12 pounds of apples that we brought home from apple picking last weekend (biggest hit so far: the salted caramel apple butter from Keepin’ it Kind, which I used below), and given that this recipe only calls for 1 apple I didn’t exactly make much of a dent in them, but the muffins sure are wonderful. They’re moist, fluffy, and singing with fall flavors and a subtle sweetness. I hope you’ll give them a try!
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Spelt Banana Apple Muffins
Wet:
2/3 cup plain, unsweetened almond milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 ripe bananas (see notes)
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 small apple, peeled & grated (see notes)
3 tb apple butter (optional)
Dry:
1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tb baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and stir the apple cider vinegar into the almond milk, setting aside. In a bowl, mash the ripe banana and use a fork to stir in the maple syrup, olive oil, almond and vanilla extracts, and grated apple; combine very well – some small banana lumps are fine. When the almond milk has started to curdle (5-10 minutes), give it another stir and add it into the rest of the wet mixture.
In a separate bowl, sift to combine all of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet mixture into the bowl with the dry mixture and stir only until combined. Gently fold in the apple butter, if using. Distribute the mixture into a greased or lined muffin/cupcake tin and bake for about 15 minutes (mini muffins) or 17 minutes (regular-sized muffins), or until a toothpick comes out clean, muffins are firm to the touch and slightly browned.
Let cool for 10 minutes before eating. They’re great on their own, but a dollop of apple butter on top is extra fantastic. Enjoy!
Notes: If your bananas are brown, but not quite there, chop them up and microwave them for 1 minute, then proceed. Red apples are much preferred for this recipe because they are sweeter. I grated it into pretty small shreds and the juice that they released got mixed in, too. I think it would be fine to use the peel if you want, but I peeled mine because at one point it was in my soggy backpack during that fateful bike ride, lol. Grating the apple and microwaving the bananas (if needed) is a good way to pass the time waiting for your almond milk to curdle.
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