Pumpkins & Apples, Oh My...

I love pumpkin bread, and apple bread, but really wanted to try a bread that used both. I looked around, and ended up combining a few recipes to make these muffins, which turned out very moist and tasty. Perfect for breakfast or snacks. They didn't last long!


Apple Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup pure pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 c. peeled, diced apples

Topping:
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 tablespoons brown sugar

In large bowl, combine the flour, spices, soda and salt into a large bowl. In another bowl, combine the eggs, pumpkin, and oil with a whisk, or fork. Add this to the dry ingredients, stirring until JUST moistened. Stir in diced apples. Spoon the batter into greased/sprayed muffin tins or paper lined muffin cups filling almost to the top. In a small bowl mix the cinnamon with the brown sugar using a fork. Sprinkle a little of this mixture over the top of each muffin. Bake muffins at 350°F. for 35 or 40 minutes until done. This made 18 regular sized muffins.

On OFL you'll find these recipes:

Pumpkin Ginger Muffins

http://oldfashionedliving.com/pumpkin4.html

Pumpkin Maple Cheesecake

http://oldfashionedliving.com/pumpkin2.html

Apple Brunch Recipes

http://oldfashionedliving.com/applebrunch.html

~Brenda

The Lovely Smell of Fall Treats

I see, when I bend close, how each leaflet of a
climbing rose is bordered with frost, the autumn
counterpart of the dewdrops of summer dawns.
The feathery leaves of yarrow are thick with silver
rime and dry thistle heads rise like goblets plated
with silver catching the sun. ~Edwin Way Teale

I love fall food; the smells, the spices, the fruit and of course, the eating. We also love tea at our house, and baking goodies to go along with the tea. I thought you would like these fall recipes to try this weekend.

Harvest Spice Tea Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 cup water
2 cinnamon tea bags (see note)
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla extract -
Butter
Nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bring the water to a boil in a small pan,add the tea bags, and steep for 3 to 5 minutes. Mix the other ingredients in a large bowl. Add the tea, carefully squeezing excess liquid from tea bags before discarding the bags. Mix the batter well. Pour into a 8x8x2-inch greased baking dish that has been buttered. Bake for 25 minutes. When cooled slightly, spread a little butter on top to melt and sprinkle with the nutmeg. Note: Any spicy type tea will work great--even a chai.

Ginger Cranberry Tea

Ingredients:
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh, rinsed cranberries
pinch nutmeg
1/2 cup cranberry juice
2 mint sprigs
Sugar or honey to sweeten

In a medium sized bowl, pour boiling water over ginger and cranberries. Cover and let stand 20 minutes. Strain, add nutmeg and cranberry juice and stir. Add sugar or honey to taste. Serve warm. Garnish with mint.

Pumpkin Dip

Ingredients:
4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese; softened
1 can (16 oz) pumpkin, or cooked pumpkin- pureed
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix together all the ingredients. Serve with teddy bear
shaped crackers, apples or ginger snaps.

Lina, one of my long time friends, shared this recipe from Libby's. These are fun to make and give as a hostess gift, autumn birthday gift or just to make and eat.

Mini Pumpkin Muffin Mix

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup raisins, sweetened dried cranberries
OR chopped nuts (optional)
1 cup granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 can (15 oz.) Pure Pumpkin

COMBINE all ingredients, except pumpkin, in large bowl.Pour into 1-quart container, resealable plastic bag will work; seal. Wrap muffin mix and a can of pumpkin in fabric; tie with ribbon or twine.

RECIPE TO ATTACH:
Pour muffin mix into large bowl. Cut in 1/2 cup vegetable shortening with pastry blender until mixture is fine. Add 1 cup LIBBY'S 100% PURE PUMPKIN, 1 cup milk and 2 large eggs; mix until just moistened. Spoon into greased or paper-lined mini-muffin pans, filling 2/3 full. Bake in preheated 400 degree F oven for 15 minutes; remove to wire racks. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired. Makes about 60 mini muffins.

I hope your weekend is lovely. ~Brenda

Friday's Vintage Recipe: Muffins

In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning
glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of
months of thought and care and toil. And at no
season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we
get such superb colour effects as from August
to November. ~Rose G. Kingsley

I've been trying out various muffin mixes and muffin recipes to find something the kids would like for breakfast and snacks. I found this one in my copy of Culinary Art Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook, edited by Ruth Berolzheimer, published in 1950. This is a huge 979 page, plus index, cookbook, so I'm sure I'll be sharing from it again. Before I give you the recipe and notes I have to share one of the rhymes the book uses to teach the proper cooking technique for muffins.

If the oven is too hot, all the good mixing has
gone to naught. Muffins turn out poorly shaped,
full of holes, and are often tough.

These rhymes are throughout the entire cookbook and make it fun to read, as well as use. Here is the recipe, and my notes follow:

Caramel Cinnamon Muffins

3 tablespoons butter (I used stick margarine)
2/3 brown sugar
2 cups sifted flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 egg
1 cup milk (I used 2%)
2 tablespoons melted shortening (Microwaved 50 seconds)

Grease the muffin pans and place 1/2 teaspoon butter and 1 teaspoon brown sugar in each muffin cup. (See the picture below) Sift flour, baking powder, salt and the cinnamon together. Beat egg; add milk, shortening and remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar. Add this to the sifted dry ingredients, stirring only enough to dampen all the flour. Fill the muffin tins 3/4 full and bake in a hot oven (425 degrees F.) for 20 minutes. Makes 18. If desired, chopped nuts or raisins may be added to the butter and brown sugar in the bottom of the cups.



Everyone liked these muffins, but they didn't have a cake-like texture. They were more like a coffee cake. A couple of things I may have overlooked and would change next time: I only sifted the flour once with the dry ingredients. I think sifting it once alone, and once more with the dry items may make it lighter. I also did use margarine instead of butter, which may have changed it slightly. Since margarine costs MUCH less then butter, and this is an everyday recipe I'll stick with it. Also, whole milk was probably used instead of 2%, which may have made a little difference too. I really liked these muffins and would certainly make them again.

I also think it would be yummy with a little brown sugar sprinkled on the top before baking. This is the finished muffin:



I just want to end with a reminder about muffins. Do not over mix. That's why it calls for the egg and wet ingredients to be mixed BEFORE adding to the dry. Those you mix well, but once it's combined you want to gently mix to moisten all the flour, then stop. Hmmm...wonder if that should have a rhyme?

If you don't want to end up in a fix,
Be sure you never over mix.

Maybe I should just stick to the baking:)

On OFL I have a page of muffin recipes here: http://www.oldfashionedliving.com/muffins.html

~Brenda