Applesauce Cranberry Muffins.

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For the past few days we have been waking to cool, gray skies, threatening rain.  The chickens don't seem to mind.  They happily make their way out of their warm coop, fluff  their feathers and begin their daily search for a small, summer bug still lingering in the earth or the last taste of a goldenrod leaf.  We, unlike our hens, have found that it's nice to wait a little longer until we bundle up for outside play and have started to put our heads together for new, fun, indoor adventures.  

So, today, we set to work on making some muffins.  We used a recipe for Applesauce Cranberry Muffins from our Moosewood Restaurant cookbook and it turned out that there was no better way to spend our morning inside than measuring and mixing near our little blue stove burning hot.

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2 cups unbleached white flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 egg

1 egg white

1/2 cup evaporated skimmed milk

2 tablespoons canola or other vegetable oil

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup applesauce

1/2 cup dried cranberries
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1. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg.

2. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the whole egg with the egg white.

3. Stir in the milk, oil, sugar and applesauce.

4. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry and then add the cranberries.

5. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins (with oil or paper liners) and bake 20-25 minutes.

The muffins were a bit denser than I had hoped but were tasty nonetheless.  I think if we baked them again I would add more of the spices and maybe some maple syrup and sunflower seeds too!  We made some in mini muffin papers and they made for a nice little snack for my son and I through out the day!

P.s We used applesauce that we had made the before.  It was so delicious that is was hard to save some until the next day.  The house smelled lovely too!

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