Apple Cinnamon Muffins

What happened to summer? It was 80 degrees on Monday and today we're in the 50s. Fall is on it's way... and you know what that means? It's apple season! Woohoo! It's time to make use of all of the fresh apples available. I personally cannot wait to go apple picking this year. My friend Sameed and I are planning on making an apple pie as soon as we can figure out a good day to go apple picking. All of this accounting work is really getting in the way of my baking ;) Speaking of accounting, I brought these apple cinnamon muffins to my tax class this morning. We have a 3 hour class on Friday mornings... yeah, I know, rough. To make it a little more bearable I thought I'd make some muffins. I think they went over pretty well. Everyone said they were really good. I hope they don't expect this every week because making a triple batch of muffins and them carrying them 8 blocks to school is not that easy :)

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of ground cinnamon (just something I added in, you can tweak the amount)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chopped apples (I used Gala)

Cinnamon topping:
   1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
   1 tbsp all-purpose flour
   1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
   1 tbsp unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces

 
Directions:
Place a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease or place liners in a 12 cup muffin pan and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract until smooth. Stir in chopped apples. Gradually add in flour mixture while continually stirring. The consistency of the mixture will be somewhere in between a batter and dough. Evenly spoon mixture into muffin cups. To make the cinnamon topping, in a small bowl mix together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. With your hands work in the cold butter until it is the size of small peas. Evenly sprinkle topping over muffins. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in muffin pan for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

Yields 12 muffins.

Source: Recipe from BlogChef