Apple crumble muffins

I am glad my husband wasn't at home when I baked these ... wow, what a mess! I blame the crumble topping! This is the first time I have used rice bran oil. The original recipe called for 2/3 cup vegetable oil, but I thought I'd try halving the oil and making up for it by adding apple puree. Rice bran oil has a more subtle taste compared to vegetable oil, and has a nutty sort of flavour.

This recipe makes 18 muffins or 12 muffins + 1 loaf cake approx. The muffins take 25-30 minutes to cook, while the cake took approx 50 minutes. Today I baked 12 muffins and 1 loaf cake. 

Ingredients:

Muffins

• 1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup rice bran oil
• 1/3 cup apple puree
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarb soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup butter milk
• 2 cups grated apple (approx 3 large apples)

Crumble topping

• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup plain flour
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Method:

Preheat oven to 176 degrees Celcius (fan-forced oven). Grease and line muffin pan.

Muffins

In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar, oil, apple puree, egg and vanilla until smooth.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, soda and salt. Add cinnamon. 

Add the oil and sugar mixture to the flour mixture, then add in the buttermilk.

Fold in grated apple until just combined.

Spoon mixture into prepared muffin pan.

Crumble topping

Mix butter, sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Sprinkle crumble mixture over muffins before popping them in the oven to bake. Bake them for around 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and tops spring back.

For the loaf cake, I greased and lined a standard loaf pan, and poured remaining mixture into it. I sprinked the remaining crumble topping onto it, and baked it for approx 45-50 minutes.

shoeboxgirl