Recipe Review: Apple Oat Muffins

Thanks to a gift subscription (of a sort) from my brother-in-law, I receive Vegetarian Times in the mail (almost) every month. Last month I decided to try out the recipe for Apple Oat Muffins. I didn't have any quick-cooking oats, but instead used a multi-grain blend that I bought at Trader Joe's. The 2 cups of diced apple was obtained by one large Rome apple, on which I left the peel.

The result was delicious! If you look closely at the tops of the muffins, you can see bits of red from the apple peel. The recipe states that the muffin cups will be very full--they were--but you can see that there was no overflow. These were some hearty muffins. I would imagine that you could substitute whole wheat flour for some of the flour in the recipe for added nutrition. The yogurt is a good addition, substituting for the oil used in a standard muffin recipe. These muffins freeze very well, so you can make a batch, stick at least half in a plastic freezer bag, and eat them all week long. Just make sure they spend enough time defrosting--I discovered that frozen muffin is not so nice to eat.

Take note of the shiny pans used to bake these. These pans were specifically purchased to bake cupcakes. The shiny metal leads to very light baking. I should buy separate pans for muffins, in a darker finish, which will give the outside, the "crust" of the muffin, if you will, a much better texture to correspond with the density of the baked goodies.