This Is This Week

This week, A was very curious about trying to use the crabapples on the tree in our yard in some way.

I started researching crabapple jelly recipes, but I had some reservations about that option because we do not have a water bath canner or a good piece of kitchen equipment for pressing the juice from the apples.

In my search for jelly recipes, however, I did find a bunch of other options for using crabapples and got inspired.

Some people use crabapples to make breads and muffins, apparently, so I figured I could try my recently discovered pancake mix muffin trick to use some crabapples!

Crabapple Nut Muffins (using pancake mix!)

Ingredients

• 1 cup chopped crabapples
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 3 cups pancake mix
• 1 cup brown sugar (you could use another granulated sweetener)
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil (you could use butter or vegetable oil, I bet)
• 2 eggs (or vegan alternative)
• 1 1/4 cup almond milk (or other milk)
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit
2. Wash and chop your crabapples carefully. I cut around the core/pit and diced them pretty small because I wasn’t sure how pleasant that tangy taste would be. I only found a worm in one apple; don’t include the worms.
3. Whisk together your eggs, milk, and sugar.
4. Gently mix in your pancake mix and add the cinnamon.
5. Drizzle in the melted coconut oil slowly; you are sort of “tempering” it to avoid the oil seizing back up and solidifying. If your eggs and milk are room temperature, this isn’t as much of an issue, but I usually decide to bake on impulse and skip this “room temperature” step.
6. Fold in the apples and nuts.
7. Scoop batter into greased muffin cups using large ice cream/cookie scooper.
8. Bake 20-24 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.