Hey there!

Another day, another time, another meal. What are you up to?

The ones of you, that follow me on facebook have already seen what I did yesterday. I made roses out of apples and put them on muffins!! Majorly cute!! 🙂

I couldn’t wait sharing!! Even if the dough is not exactly what I dreamed of.

You see – I’m a big self critic. One time my brother said something to me, which is sooo true – and what hit me again when I was sharing those muffins. You must know, we are all food lovers. We really like to cook, bake and prepare delicious food, especially for other people!! We get creative together, alone or talk about stuff we want to try out. Very important for us is to do things the old fashioned way. To work with our hands to create something incredible and then share it with others! We want to know how to make the food we eat on our own, and not just buy a package of perhaps premade lasagne at the store. My father has designed and built a wooden fired oven in our backyard which we use to bake his handmade sourdough bread, make a pizza party or bake cakes. My brother likes to do different kind of meat roasts and my mum does the side dishes like traditional sauerkraut or so. You see – it is kind of a family hobby 😉

So what my brother said to me was: When we share our food with someone, and that someone tells us it tastes great, we can’t really believe it. There hast to be at least a little bit of criticism for us to believe that the other person really is honest!

And this was soo true this time again. For me the muffins were a bit too crispy, it is not a really cakey dough. But I hadn’t even tried them myself! I just nibbled on a bit of dough that was overflowing during baking. So when I was told, that they really liked the muffins, I was very skeptical and had to ask if it wasn’t too crispy and stuff.

BUT WAIT – Why am I doing this? I worsen my own creation by myself?! Isn’t there a false to this logic??

I am sure there is!! I definitly have to learn to accept when somebody is liking what I did. Just like that. And not look for mistakes myself! It makes myself just feel worse, with now real reason…

Dear reader, i hope your still with me. Those muffins definitily deserve a chance! They look soo pretty with the roses on top! And they acutally were quite good. Not the way I imagined when I first judged over them without even trying myself 😉 There not the best muffins I ever ate, but they still are very good! Have fun trying out the roses technic and don’t give up too early. It is not so hard once you found out how!

And off we go:

Apple Rose Muffins with Marzipan and Walnuts

Recipe of dough adapted from Kawaii Kitchen

Ingredients:

100g butter at room temperature

150g sugar (I used homemade vanilla sugar)

3 eggs

150g flour

1/2 package baking powder (about 8g)

40g chopped walnuts

Filling:

50g marzipan (optional)

6 apples (you need mostly the skin, so keep in mind you have to do something else with the flesh)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Whisk butter in a bowl with a hand mixer until creamy then add the sugar and whisk some more.

2. Add the eggs, one by one.

3. Put flour and baking powder in your bowl at the same time and mix slowly just until incorporated. Fold in walnuts.

4. Put a bit of batter in every of the 12 molds of a buttered muffin pan or one lined with muffin papers. Divide marzipan into 12 pieces and put them in the middle of the dough. Divide the rest of the batter equally between the 12 molds.

5. Now the apples: wash and dry them. Start peeling the first apple from the very top near the stem with a peeler. Try to make stripes with half skin half flesh and try not to brake them. You can make roses for two muffins with one apple (depending on the size). Roll the stripe in a circular motion, the part of the stripe with the skin should be on top. Put the rose on top of the muffin, don’t press it down too much because the dough will rise a lot.  For the second rose of the first apple start peeling from the bottom to the ‘equator’ of the apple. Don’t be scared! It just needs a little bit of practice. But the cute look is sooo worth it!! If your stripe cracks that’s no problem, just make a rose of the parts. Happened to me too 😉

6. Put the muffins into the oven and bake for 30-35. min.

7. Dust with powdered sugar if you like. Enjoy!!

I am sorry that I don’t have step-by-step pictures. It was because I was not sure if they turned out well, and I was occupied with the technic myself. 😉 But as there was already a request for the recipe I thought I couldn’t keep you waiting!! I will definitly make those again and maybe do a proper tutorial. If you experience any difficulties or have any questions, just ask!!

What to do with the rest of the apples? What I did was a compote with apples, green seedless grapes, freshly pressed orange juice of 2-3 oranges and a little bit of vanilla sugar. We had this plain as a dessert! But I imagine it would be great with joughurt, rice pudding or semolina porridge too.

~Kathrin