

Dutch Apple Honey Muffins
Rosh Ha’Shana is the Jewish New Year celebration. It is an event filled with various traditional culinary dishes, a very common one is to eat an apple with honey (and wishing everyone such a sweet year).
This year, my 4 years old son has given me this great idea for a culinary transformation of this tradition. I asked Jona what should we make this year with Apple & Honey, and he said “Cakes! Cookies! Cakes! Cookies”.
This made me think “Why can’t we have Apple & Honey muffins? maybe even with a Dutch twist?”, which led to the creation of the Dutch Apple Honey Muffins - introducing into the recipe the amazing local spice mixture Speculaas.
Ingredients (18 medium muffins / 12 large muffins)
• 2-3 cooking apples (Goudreinet or Granny Smith)
• 2-4 tbs water
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp speculaas spice
• 250 gram white flour
• 100 gram white sugar
• 0.5 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 80 ml oil
• 2 eggs
• 340 gram honey
• 100 ml espresso
• 1-2 tbs brandy/frangelico/other liqueur of your choice (optional, not with kids)
Preparation
The apple mixture - peel, core and slice the apples thinly, put in a cooking pan with the water, bring to boil and lower the heat. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until soft. Take off the heat, add the cinnamon & speculaas and let cool on the side.
Turn on the oven to 180C.
The dough - mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder & baking soda) in one bowl and the wet ingredients (oil, eggs and honey) in another one. Pour the dry into the wet, mix well and add the espresso & alcohol, don’t forget to mix again until uniform.
Line & oil the muffin baking form, pour the mixture according to preferred amount. Get the form into the oven and bake until a tooth pick comes out clean (15-20 minutes). Turn off the oven, open the door a bit and let the muffins cool off inside for 30 minutes.
Take out and store in a closed vessel in the fridge for up to a week.
Shana Tova ve Metuka! (Good & Sweet Year in Hebrew)
by: Amit Rabin
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