#SecretRecipeClub ~ Apple Oat Muffins

Welcome to the February 2016 Group D reveal day for Secret Recipe Club! I hope you will take a moment to visit the Secret Recipe Club if you've never heard of it before - it is a wonderful group of food bloggers who are given a secret assignment of another member's blog each month and our goal is to pick ANYTHING from their blog to make and post about on our designated reveal day.

For this month I received the lovely Karen's blog "Lavendar and Lovage". Please do yourself a favor and take a moment to visit Karen and just lose yourself for a little while in the gorgeous photos and tantalizing recipes. Karen is someone I so wish I could travel through the computer to have an afternoon tea and chat with!

I started working on narrowing down a few ideas - look at a few of these amazing options I had to choose from! Chicken and Pearl Barley Stew, Baked Lemon Chicken with Saffron, Healthy Three Cheese Macaroni Cheese Gratin, Cappuccino Pancakes with Bananas, Coffee Shop Style Banana Bread, Brazilian Chicken and Rice Soup, Scrambled Eggs on Oatcakes, Tomato and Garden Herbs Omelet, Sticky Pulled Chicken Sliders, Homemade Lemon Curd, Old Bay Shrimp in Wine with a Spicy Creamy Dip... I really need to stop looking at food blogs before I've even eaten breakfast.

My adorable baby assistant insisted on helping with photographs and taste testing. She's such a good little helper. She sees the camera and must jump in front of it!

I included Karen's original ingredient list below and what I used in parentheses next to it since I converted most of the ingredients into cups instead of grams. My muffins came out so tasty - we couldn't decide if they were the perfect breakfast muffin, snack, afternoon tea muffin, dessert... these are definitely hybrids and you can use them for any time of day, in any type of way. The consistency is dense, moist, with some bounce to the dough as well - chock full of lovely grated apple and a nice chew from the oats as well. They are very lightly sweet which makes them great for any time of day. I think a nice addition would be some cinnamon, and maybe even a little bit of brown sugar streusal on top. 

I hope you give them a try soon - we all loved these delicious treats!

Apple Oat Muffins from Lavender and Lovage

Ingredients
125g self raising flour (1 cup AP flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt)
75g wholemeal flour (1/2 cup whole wheat flour)
75g oats (3/4 cup oats)
50g light brown sugar (1/4 cup brown sugar)
2 medium apples cored and grated (I left the peel on mine)
50g low-fat spread (such as Flora) (3.5 TBS butter / margarine)
150mls skimmed milk (2/3 cup milk)
1 large egg 
2 tablespoons sour cream

extra oats for dusting

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F and line or grease a 12-muffin tin with paper liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Whisk the flours, oats and sugar together.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg, sour cream. Mix well but do NOT over mix.
4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tin , milk and melted butter, blend on medium to medium-high speed until mixture is well combined and smooth. On low speed add in the dry mixture and grated apple. Only mix until combined, do not over mix.
5. Evenly distribute batter between muffin cups (my muffin cups were each very full), then sprinkle extra oats over the top and bake in the pre-heated oven for 15 to 20 minutes (I baked for 20 minutes), until the muffins are well risen and golden brown.
6. Allow to cool in the pan before removing and allowing to cool completely on a wire rack.

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