This recipe took at least five tries and a lot of perseverance to perfect.
Early this winter, I saw a cooking contest pass by in my newsfeed on social media. A local New England applesauce brand, Simply Wholesome–recently re-branded with a new name: Our Family Garden– was sponsoring a cooking contest. The participants would receive a six jars of their applesauce (two each of three different varieties) and they could submit as many recipes as they wished, as long as they utilized the applesauce in their recipes, which had to be previously unpublished, original recipes.
We love cooking contests here, we have won several of them between us, and I decided to enter the contest. The winter months are a little bit slower for me work-wise than the spring and there was enough time allotted for some trial and error as I went about figuring out how to create an original-never-been-published-before recipe.
My box of applesauce arrived within a few days of letting them know I’d be entering the contest. I was shocked to find six, full-sized samples of applesauce in the box, along with a jar of their blueberry jam as a gift for entering.
I had already decided that I wanted to try to create an apple pie type of muffin with a streusel topping. I just had to come up with a recipe and incorporate the applesauce. I began researching basic muffin recipes so that I could see what ingredients I needed and approximately how much of each it takes to make a muffin, a muffin. Then, I added in their cinnamon applesauce, at first adding it in just to the actual muffin mix, to give them the apple pie flavor I was hoping for. As I created my streusel topping, my youngest daughter, who was home and doing a lot of cooking at the time, suggested that I add the applesauce to the topping as well. I thought that was a brilliant idea. I was creating a topping that included brown sugar, butter, quick oats, and now the applesauce too. My entire recipe was gluten free, using gluten free flour and gluten free oatmeal as well.
I made the muffins, following the recipe I’d come up with. We waited with great anticipation for them to come out of the oven. It was very exciting as we watched them cook through the window of the oven.
This wasn’t quite the result I’d been anticipating.
As we looked inside though, we saw a big mess. The muffin topping was oozing all over the place. They tasted delicious, but they were a mess. The topping was oozing and the centers were sinking.
Hmmm…not really contest-worthy.
I hadn’t thought about the fact that this really might take more than one try.
My family said the muffins were good enough to try again, so I did.
Again, and again, and again, and again.
Now I’d gone too far in the other direction.
I was determined to get this recipe right. Although the first time I made them they were too wet, by the fourth time I’d added in flour to the topping and now they were too dry, and my kids were beginning to dread coming home to the latest “after school snack” or waking up to a Saturday breakfast “surprise” of apple pie muffins—again.
“What did you do to them,” one of the kids asked in distress this particular time. “Go back to the way they were, at least they tasted good.”
I was starting to run out of time and out of willing tasters.
I talked with my mom multiple times to get her opinion, and I thought and thought about my recipe ingredients and what seemed to be working and what didn’t.
What was I doing wrong??
Over and over in my mind I thought about all of the times I’d learned about scientists and how their hypotheses weren’t always right and how their experiments didn’t always work the first time around and how the learning takes place in the trial and error process, not necessarily in getting it right the first time around.
I was feeling like a kitchen scientist, albeit a weary one. How long did these scientists take to perfect their experiments??
The contest deadline was coming up. I’d had about two months to get this recipe right and I was not going to give up. I wasn’t even in it for the win any longer, I was in it for the personal satisfaction of accomplishing this task of creating my own recipe for the first (and possibly only) time ever. I wanted it to be good, I wanted my husband and kids to like it and be proud of me, and I wanted to get it right. I like to get things right. I like to give 110 percent all the time.
I gave it one final try. I adjusted my ingredients one last time. I begged my family to give them one last taste.
“I hope you get them right this time, they’re good, but I don’t think I can eat another one any time soon,” my oldest daughter said.
If I didn’t get the topping right this time, I really thought I might give up.
I put what I hoped would be the final batch in the oven, and I held my breath, literally. I’d added in raisins to one of the trays on the advice of my mother and two of my kids who like them, and left one without, for the one who doesn’t.
I watched them cooking in the oven. The topping seemed to be doing what it was supposed to be doing, spreading out without oozing over, and didn’t seem overly dry.
Could it be that I’d finally gotten the right balance of every ingredient down??
It seems that it could. I’d figured it out. I think I cheered out loud.
I pulled them out of the oven, and everyone took a bite. Again, I held my breath and waited for their responses.
Five thumbs up from my family.
Perfection.
Apple Pie Muffins with a Sweet Streusel topping for the win.
Except I didn’t win.
Not exactly.
I didn’t win one of the top three cash prizes that seemed attractive at the time I started out in this process.
But, I won a lot more than that. I can proudly say that I have created a recipe, my very own recipe, that was delicious, and most importantly I did not give up. I never anticipated this would take this long. I generally don’t have the patience to stick with something this long and see it through, but I could not let this one go, and I’m glad I didn’t.
Additionally, I have to say, we fell in love with this applesauce. I submitted a second recipe to the contest for Zesty BBQ pork chops which also utilized one of the varieties of applesauce, and my kids were going through the six jars like crazy, each variety was just as good as the last. I always have been a homemade applesauce kind of girl, and I have never purchased an applesauce my family has loved this much. I’m glad that we don’t live far from the Big Y markets in Massachusetts where it is going to be on the shelves under the new branding. It’ll be worth the ride just over the state line to get more. Not to mention, I recently ordered a case of their jams, as my youngest daughter finished the entire jar of blueberry jam on her own. When I heard that there were two other varieties, I decided to place an order for them.
In the end, I gained much more from this experience than I ever imagined I would have, and I have no regrets about entering, or about not winning.
Sometimes it just not about the win, it’s about the journey.
Apple Pie Muffins with Sweet Streusel Topping
by Jennifer L. Cowart
Apple pie muffins
*to make gluten free, use 1:1 gluten free all-purpose baking flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1/3 cup Touch of Honey Applesauce With Cinnamon
2 apples peeled, cored and diced
Optional: use only one apple and add in 2/3 cups raisins.
Sweet Streusel Topping
*to make gluten free, use gluten free oats and gluten free flour.
¼ cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup quick oats (not instant) uncooked
1/4 cup flour
1/3 cup Touch of Honey Applesauce with Cinnamon
Directions
1) Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray 24 muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray.
2) In a large bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
3) Add in eggs, milk and applesauce. Mix until well combined.
4) Add diced apples (and raisins, if desired) and mix well.
5) Put approximately two tablespoons of batter into each muffin tin, until ¾ of the way full. Set aside. **If there are empty muffin tins, fill with water, ¾ of the way full.**
6) In a separate bowl, mix together streusel ingredients.
7) Add one teaspoon of topping to the top of each portion of batter, spreading across top of batter.
8) Bake for 15-18 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of muffins comes out clean.
Best served warm.
Makes 18-24 muffins.
Finally!
The Whole bag of Chips 