Apple Date Walnut Muffins and Mini Loaves

I love muffins. They definitely fall under the umbrella of "comfort food" for me. Eating a muffin baked to perfection is such an enjoyable experience. Pair it with a great cup of coffee and I'm even happier. :) One of my favorite quotes is "There's nothing bigger than the little things." Muffins are one of those "little things" in my book!

Okay, enough rambling from me. Onto the recipe! I semi-followed a recipe in this fun cupcake book that my mom gave me for Christmas. Thanks, Mom!

Yes, it is a cupcake book, but it has some muffin recipes in it too! The original recipe was for "fruity lunch box muffins" (they contained berries), but there was a variation on the page for "apple and golden raisin muffins" and that's what I semi-followed. I still changed the recipe slightly though because that's just what I do! 

Here are the ingredients and instructions I followed to make my apple date walnut muffins:

-3/4 cup all-purpose flour
-1/2 cup whole wheat flour
-2/3 cup regular oats
-2 tsp. baking powder
-1/3 cup sugar
-1 tsp. cinnamon
-2 eggs
-6 oz. yogurt (I used Yoplait apple pie flavor, perhaps it enhanced the apple flavor in the muffins ;-))
-3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
-3 Tbsp. melted butter
-1 Tbsp. maple syrup
-2 tsp. vanilla
-1 cup chopped apple (macintosh)
-2/3 cup chopped dates
-1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin pan with liners or grease the pan. Mix the flour, oats, baking powder, sugar, and cinnamon with a whisk in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, yogurt, oil, melted butter, maple syrup, and vanilla with a spoon; once incorporated, add to the flour mixture and stir until thoroughly combined (but do not over mix). Mix in the chopped apple, dates, and walnuts.

Fill muffin cups 3/4 of the way full, and bake for approximately 15 minutes (oven times may vary, as always!). Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Quite a few additions that I made were not in the original recipe; those included the cinnamon, maple syrup, dates, and walnuts. I love changing recipes a little bit to make them my own. :)

This recipe made 12 muffins and 4 mini loaves for me.

See this cute little mini loaf pan below? I LOVE this pan! I used it for the first time with this recipe, and it was so great. The loaves baked really evenly and they were really easy to remove from the pan. Yay! I'd highly recommend it. I bought mine at Crate and Barrel. I've used it one other time since this recipe, and it worked great that time too.

Like my new towel with all the baking related words on it? So fun! It was another gift from my mom. :)

There's the goodness on the inside. :)

I liked that these muffins were light and airy, yet hearty too, thanks to the additions of apples, dates, oatmeal, and walnuts. Healthy healthy, friends! Love it.

Talk to you again soon!