Autumn Muffins

Yesterday was the first snow of the season day in Prague.

It means that the winter is coming and that the autumn is gonna turn soggy and crappy and all unpleasant and everything. I liked it so far - the colors, the weather, the smell of fallen leaves... I really wanted to preserve this autumn-y feeling for at least couple more moments and muffins seemed to me like the best way to do it. They are easy to share with others, they are easy to make and they are extremely customizable in terms of ingredients.

A quick search for autumn muffins yielded a great recipe - cranberries, figs, apples and hazelnuts work great as autumn fruit. I added a bit of rum to it for extra flavor and it really pushed the whole comfy feeling of a still warm muffin to another level. I was thinking about adding raisins too but when I saw how much there was of the fruit in the end I decided not to. The muffins are already chewy enough... Perhaps if the amount of  cranberries was halved and raisins filled the other half... Hmm.


Autumn Muffins
for 12 muffins you will need:

so much stuff but it's so worth it

• 250g all purpose flour
• 100g white sugar
• 100g brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 150g butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 200ml milk
• 75g chopped dried cranberries
• 1 small chopped, peeled apple
• 50g (around 6) chopped dried figs
• 50g chopped hazelnuts
• 3 tablespoons rum

1. Line up your muffin pan with paper cases and preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.
2. Place the cranberries, apple, figs and hazelnuts in a bowl and pour over the rum. Toss and mix it so that everything gets covered and put aside.
3. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. In a different bowl combine the wet ingredients - melted butter, milk and the egg and whisk briefly together. Pour the mixture into the flour-sugar-spice bowl and stir until smooth. Then fold in the content of the fruit and nut bowl until everything's well combined.
4. Spoon the batter into the paper cases and bake for about 15 minutes, turning 180° after 10 minutes, until the toothpick inserted into the muffins comes out clean.