Apple Speculoos Muffins

Last winter I finally found speculoos spread and sort of went wild. I might have overdosed on it. I couldn’t really look at it for a few months. But now with the mornings and evenings being cool again and the leaves turning colors, I had to break it back out. I found a half empty jar tucked under a few bags of ancient pasta when I was cleaning out my kitchen. I was going out of town for a few days, and I wanted to use as many things as I could before I left, so I found a way to combine speculoos spread and apples into muffins. This might sound like an odd combination to you too, but I thought what the hell, I might as well try it.
I made these muffins the morning I was flying to Nashville. I have learned from experience that it is always a good idea to bring snacks to the airport with me. And it proved to be true yet again. We sat in the airport for just around 4 hours waiting for the flight crew to show up so we could board our plane. We might have also eaten a bag of Sour Patch Kids, but hey, I’m a stress eater. And I probably would have snacked a lot more if we had driven the 12 hours home. So I count it as a win.


Apple Speculoos Muffins
makes five jumbo muffins

1 ½ cups flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup speculoos spread
1 tsp vanilla extract
egg replacer for 1 egg- I used Ener-G but I think flax would be great
1 apple, diced

In medium sized bowl combine all dry ingredients. In small bowl whisk together oil, speculoos, and vanilla. Fold wet into dry with a rubber spatula and then add the diced apples. I didn’t peel mine because I love the texture the skin adds. Fill liners ¾ of the way full. These won’t rise very much. Bake at 350 for 22-25 minutes.

These muffins were a wee bit oily. I don’t think it’s anything that most people would notice, but I definitely picked up on it. If I were going to make them again, I would replace half of the oil with applesauce. I would probably also try using a flax egg to add a little extra umph.