To DIE for Apple Strudel Muffins!

Every year my family has a General Conference party. We started doing it in Michigan because the stake center was too far away to go home for the two hour break, so we just brought our lunch to the church and indulged! Everyone was invited, but the Poulsons, Moes, and Welches were always in attendance. Now that the whole family has migrated out to Utah we can get the broadcast from the comfort of our homes, so we've moved the party to the parent's house. The Poulsons joined us Sunday. Everyone brings something, and everyone grazes all day long.

Since my parents have been blessed with an abundance of apples (and both Dad and Mom have brought by a bag of apples for us), I decided it would be best to make something that contained apples. So I started my internet search for the best apple muffin recipe I could find! I found one with 658 five star reviews, and decided it must be the one for our five star Conference party! I made a few changes, and want to share my edited version with you.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2  cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 dashes of nutmeg

2 eggs

1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 cups chopped apples

1 1/2 cups grated apples

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 12 cup muffin pan (I use the reusable muffin liners) 
  

• In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. It will be a light tan color like this

• In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugars and eggs until smooth. Mix in vanilla. Stir in grated apples followed by apple chunks, and gradually blend in the flour mixture. This ends up an extremely thick batter, but I added the extra grated apples which releases moisture into the muffins as the muffin cooks. It should look like this when done
  

•  Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin pan. This is a way messy process, since the mixture is so thick. I used a spatula but still had to use my fingers to take the batter off the spatula. You could use a spoon if desired. They will look chunky in the pan, but will rise smooth
  

• In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture is like coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over tops of mixture in muffin pan. I started this with my spatula, but it wouldn't mix as well as I would like, so I would either recommend softening the butter prior to adding it, or use your hands to do the final mixing in. You could double this if you like extra topping, but I felt the topping was sufficient
  

• Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to sit 5 minutes before removing muffins from pan. Cool on a wire rack. Look at those savory little guys! They were a delicious way to start Sunday morning Conference