Apple Streusel Muffins

I’m taking baking class at a cooking school here in LA and today the focus was on quick breads. We made scones, carrot cake and muffins. The class is very small and everyone gets to make everything on their own, an advantage that not all schools can offer.

The Apple Streusel Muffins were my favorite of the day. The general reaction was something along the lines of “These are SO good!” They were delicious, very moist and had an extremely tender crumb, thanks in part to the fairly generous amount of oil in the batter. In my first batch, I accidentally added a bit of extra butter to the streusel topping, but clearly that didn’t do anything but help the final product and add more delicious butter flavor. That said, the 2 tbsp called for in the recipe is plenty to help the topping stick together.

Use untoasted walnuts in the topping because toast up enough during baking and might be too crunchy if toasted beforehand. If you don’t want to use nuts, I add about 1/3 cup of all purpose flour in to the topping mixture to give it a more substantial crumb.

Apple Streusel Muffins
Topping:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup walnuts

Mix all ingredients to resemble coarse crumbs. Set aside.

Batter:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup grated apple (2 apples, peeled and grated)
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line with paper liners (or use a jumbo muffin tin and line 8 of the cups)
Mix together all dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
Whisk together all wet ingredients in a large bowl, including grated apples. Fold flour mixture into wet ingredients until just combined.
Divide batter evenly into tins and top with streusel mixture.
For regular muffins, bake for 15-18 minutes, until tester comes out clean.
For jumbo muffins, bake for 18-22 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack before serving.

Makes 12 regular muffins or 8 jumbo muffins