Apple & Cranberry Muffins with Toasted Seedy Sprinkle

Muffins are super easy to whip up in about 10 minutes.  Bang them in the oven and you have a tasty treat for morning or afternoon tea.  Muffins are great lunch box fillers for school and are robust enough to withstand a few knocks (unlike cupcakes which get frosting/icing smooshed against everything else in the lunchbox – I am on the hunt for individual cupcake carriers).  They also freeze really well so while you have the baking bowl out, double the batch then freeze half of them in individually wrapped portions. Perfect for grabbing out of the freezer – they’re defrosted in time for lunch or afternoon tea. I have a freezer drawer set aside for baking but I find little parcels of baking tucked away in the strangest of places: behind the ice-cream, underneath the frozen bananas….. turns out Mopp has been secreting his favourite baking so the others can’t eat it.  There is one last Spiced Apple Cake which he doesn’t want to eat, because once he has, there are no more…… sounds like I need to give him that recipe so he can replenish his freezer stash.

These muffins are hearty enough for breakfast and I have given them a healthy tweak with wholemeal (whole wheat) flour and oat bran.  The grated apple keeps the muffins moist.  They can be made with or without the toasted seedy sprinkle topping (find the seedy sprinkle recipe here).  Substitute the sweet apple syrup with maple syrup or golden syrup if you wish.

2 eggs
½ cup natural unsweetened yoghurt
1 t vanilla essence
4 T sweet apple syrup
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup oat-bran
2 cups grated Granny Smith apples (about 3 apples)
½ cup wholemeal flour
1 ½ t baking soda
½ t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
½ cup traditional rolled oats
2 T ground LSA (linseed, sunflower seed & almond mix)
½ cup seedy sprinkle (optional)

Preheat oven to 190ºC.
Grease or line 12 muffin tins.
Whisk eggs, yoghurt, vanilla & apple syrup together in a large bowl until combined.
Add cranberries, oat bran and apples and stir until mixed.
Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, rolled oats & ground LSA in another bowl and stir until well mixed.
Make a well in the dry ingredients, then pour in the wet ingredients. Mix until just combined.
Fill the muffin tins (makes12 muffins).  Sprinkle over seedy sprinkle.
Bake 15-20 minutes.