Apple Walnut Muffins

Remember when I told you I'd ordered Bake Wise?  And then, remember when I was all excited reading it but I hadn't made anything yet?  Well .... I started with muffins.  "Dena's Great Apple-Walnut Muffins" (pages 129 - 131) to be exact.  If you were naive enough to believe the title of these muffins, as I was, you might think they were great.  I have to tell you, friend, that you would be wrong wrong wrong.  These muffins are not great, they are SPECTACULAR!  Abso-frakin-lutely spectacular.  I'm really not exaggerating here.

Recipes in this book have a "What This Recipe Shows" section giving you things to take note of and hopefully learn.  I'll share some of that with you, hoping that it will help you understand the spectacularness.  (Yes, I tend to make up words.  It's ok.)

• Roasting nuts enhances flavors.
• Crisp, sweet Fuji apples hold up well in baking.
• Oil helps make muffins moist.
• Baking at a high oven temperature produces a better peak on the muffins.
• Whipped cream add moisture and great flavor, and gives the muffins a softer texture.

These treats aren't the healthy, boring, tasteless, bran muffin type muffins.  They're the sinful, delicious type you dream about.  With canola oil replacing some of the eggs, buttermilk and whipped cream they are moist and tender.  That's right, whipped cream!  Hand (or machine) whipped, by you, in your kitchen.  No extra chemicals or goop in there, just good heavy cream and a little elbow grease.  Aside from all that they also contain roasted walnut pieces, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange zest, apples and .... are you ready for this? .... English toffee bits!  It says right here in the recipe "available in bags near the chocolate chips."  I had trouble finding them but that must have been because i had my eyes closed.  They were right in front of me, just below eye level.  Haha, I had a good laugh at myself, standing in the store, staring blankly at the chips section.

I didn't use the baking stone because I don't have one.  I greased the muffin pans with butter rather than spray for no particular reason.  The peaks really were nice on these.  You might even say they were majestic.  Ok, maybe they weren't that dramatic.  The toffee added a great flavor and went nicely with the apples and walnuts.  All the flavors and scents danced around each other beautifully, independent of each other but gracefully entwined.  I love these so much that I hoarded some away in my freezer so I can have one randomly some day soon.  I'm traveling to visit family soon and I'm thinking of bringing a batch with me.

I wish you could smell and taste these but until technology catches up to my dreams pictures will have to do.

Enjoy!