Apple Butter Muffins

We're preparing to go camping for a few days and pulled everything out of the refrigerator the other day to see what is in there - what needs to be used up, what can go with us, etc. I had a small grouping of "need to use" ingredients and felt like I was on a weird episode of Chopped, the baking edition. Buttermilk, sour cream, chocolate frosting, and apple butter. I couldn't come up with something to use all four that I was willing to eat, so I focused on buttermilk and apple butter for this recipe! I often wonder how many recipes come about out of necessity of using up ingredients / produce!

These muffins are really, really lovely. They are super tender and moist. They have a bit of a crisped topping, and are SO tender inside. The ones straight from the oven were just falling apart when we took the wrappers off, but after sitting overnight they hold up just fine. Warm slightly and smear with some butter or extra apple butter if you want a little extra "special". I think they're perfect for morning with your coffee or tea, after school snack, dessert, road trip, before bedtime treat, fill in the blank!

Now I still have 1 more cup of apple butter to use up... we'll see what shows up on the blog next!

Apple Butter Muffins adapted from Acerast on Food
Makes approximately 15 muffins

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup apple butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2/3 cup buttermilk

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. Combine dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine and set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, blend the butter and sugar together for a couple minutes until creamy.
4. Add the egg in, blend. Next add the apple butter and vanilla, blend again (scrape down the sides during all the stages of blending as needed).
5. Lastly, add in the buttermilk and lemon juice and blend once more. 
6. Slowly add in the dry ingredients to your wet, on low speed, and just until combined. Do not over-mix. Finish blending with a spatula by hand.
7. Fill muffin cups about 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 22-25 minutes in the pre-heated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
8. Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to continue cooling. 
9. Repeat baking steps for any remaining batter (this recipe made 15 muffins for me).
10. They will be extra soft when still warm, they will firm up and hold together better as they finish cooling.