Toffee apple muffins

Autumn is well and truly upon us now, the leaves are falling and there's definitely a chill in the air. It's not all bad though, with Autumn comes Autumn fruits, blackberries, plums, pears, and of course apples.

Bramley apples are undoubtedly one of the best varieties for cooking, they have a fantastic slightly sharp flavour which becomes sweeter and milder with cooking. They are perfect for adding to cakes and muffins which is exactly what I did.Toffee and apples is a truly delicious combination and it works fantastically well in these muffins.

I made a traditional muffin batter to which I added big chunks of peeled chopped apples, pieces of soft toffee and of course cinnamon. To give the muffins a nice crunch I sprinkled the tops with demerera sugar.Supermarket muffins are so often disappointing, being bland, doughy and with hardly any fruit. These muffins are so easy to make there's really no need to buy them again, they taste great too!

Recipe

Ingredients:

• 350g plain flour
• 2 Tsp baking powder
• 2 Tsp Cinnamon
• 200g Caster sugar
• 2 Large eggs
• 120ml Vegetable oil
• 120 milk
• A large handful of soft toffees chopped into chunks
• 3 Bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped (you could use other apples, try Cox or Granny Smith)
• Demerera sugar for sprinkling

Method:

• Preheat your oven to gas 4/180c and line a 12 hole muffin tray with muffin cases
• In a large bowl mix all the dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar)
• Add the wet ingredients (eggs, oil, milk) to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix to a batter, a few lumps don't matter so don't over mix
• Add the chopped apples and toffees to the batter mix in well then divide the mixture between the muffin cases.
• Sprinkle the tops with the demerera sugar and bake for about 30 minutes
• serve warm or cold
  

Tarte Aux Pommes or French Apple tart

I've got to hand it to the French, no one can make pastries quite like they can. A visit to a French patisserie is as much a treat for the eyes as it is for the stomach, the hard part is knowing what to choose! Who can resist an éclair with freshly whipped cream? I know I can't! While their fruit tarts are such beautiful works of art it seems a shame to eat them!
For the most part I'm happy to leave patisserie to the professionals, the level of skill required to produce such elegant pastries is way beyond me. That said I did attempt a classic French apple tart, which although simple still makes an impressive dessert, great if you want to show off!I was pleasantly surprised at just how easy this was to make, although as I had a lot of very small apples to peel it was a little time consuming. The end result was excellent the perfect combination of crisp buttery pastry and soft sweet apples, made even better with a generous pouring of cream but then, what isn't?.

You can find a great recipe for this tart here.