Raw Apple Muffins

Spring is really coming this time. Really. My daffodils will bloom tomorrow and rhubarb and asparagus will be at the farmer's market next week. I know, I've asked.  So. Very. Excited. And that means we can start eating some different things around here. But before we welcome in the first of spring I want to say a fond farewell to one of my favorite cold weather staples: apples. I simply lurve a crisp apple with some tang. Old winesaps. Staymans. They hold me ever so much tighter than the simple sweet red delicious apples I grew up with. 
But it has been the Macintosh and the Rambo that have been with me all winter. When they become applesauce, the base of a granola apple crisp or the essence of raw apple muffins I start to understand what transfiguration is all about. Taking an excellent thing and raising it to an ethereal level.
Oh, I do love a good apple. So here is a send off of sorts, Marion Cunningham's Raw Apple Muffins. So, so moist and very apply. The perfect use for the dollar bucket of seconds at the farmer's market. Or at least that is what I did with mine.


And yes, you are reading correctly, 4 cups of chopped apples. Isn't that the amount you are always wishing were there when you eat an so called apple muffin that lacks enough apples to really make it an apple muffin? These muffins are unlike most others I make. The batter is very thick and a dry, mostly it just holds moist delicious apple chunks together, and that is just fine by me. I would know; I made them twice this week. And iIf you have the willpower to avoid eating these all in one day they freeze beautifully.


Raw Apple Muffins
adapted from Marion Cunnigham's "Breakfast Book"

4 cups diced apple, peel left on
3/4 cup of sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup oil (corn oil is very good)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup broken walnuts, toasted

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease 16 muffin tins.
Put 3 mixing bowls on the counter. Mix the apples and sugar in one bowl and set aside. Put the eggs, oil and vanilla in a second bowl and stir to blend well. In the third bowl, put the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, and stir the mixture with a fork until blended.
Stir the egg mixture in to the apples and sugar, and mix thoroughly. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the apple mixture and mis well. (I use my hands because this is a stiff batter.) Sprinkle the raisans and walnuts over the batter and mix until they are evenly distributed. Spoon into the muffin tins.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean when inserted into the center of a muffin or you can touch the top and it springs back.