Oatmeal muffins with apples and hazel nuts

Sunday 18/04/2010

Today I did my first muffin experiment. After reading tens of muffin recipes on the web, I have realized that the secret is just in mixing the ingredients which you like. OK, there is a basic procedure (such as combining dry ingredients separately, preheating the oven, etc.), but in fact everything is very simple - just prepare the batter containing everything you want to put in and bake it.

I decided to try making oatmeal muffins with apples and hazel nuts.

First I chopped 1/2 cup of hazel nuts - actually, I mashed them using mortar and pestle. Then, I covered 1 cup of oatmeal and several diet cookies (high in fiber / low in sugar) with 1 cup of milk and set it aside to soften. In the meantime, I turned on the oven (run by gas) in order to preheat it. The next step was preparing muffin cups. I used some metal cups for flan, because I did not find any muffin cups in the shop. OK, there were selling also some cups made of heat-resistant plastic, but I do not dare putting them into the oven. The cups were greased by olive oil and then slightly floured.

Now, I prepared separately dry mixture in a medium bowl, mixing first whole wheat flour (1 cup) with baking powder (1 teaspoon) and baking soda (1 teaspoon). I thought that one cup of flour would be enough, but later I had to add half a cup more to the final batter, as it seemed to be too wet. Next was adding and combining chopped hazel nuts (1/2 cup). In continuation, I took the third bowl and mashed two apples, adding 1/4 cup of honey, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and two slightly beaten eggs, and combining well.

The final step was blending all three mixtures, stirring until moistened. At that moment, I realized that I had forgotten to put in oil! So, I add also 1/4 cup of olive oil, but then the batter seemed to be too wet. I poured in additional 1/2 cup of wheat (as indicated before). There was enough mass to fill 11 muffin cups (3/4 full) - cups of medium size. I decorated each one putting one hazel nut on tops. Muffins were baked for about 35 to 40 minutes until browned. Twice, I checked if muffins were ready by inserting a fork into the center of one of them, looking if it comes out clean.

As you can see from the photos, this experiment was very successful. Muffins were quite tasty, neither too sweet nor dry, and very rich.

Read more about other muffin recipes .