apple bites

something about studying makes me want to eat or bake, so as a reward for getting through my food science midterm (not that i did well...but that's besides the point) i decided to bake (the eating came during the studying!)

there are still so many apples in the house i knew i wanted to bake with apples and looking through my favorite blogs i saw a lot of delicious looking apple cake recipes (check out bakerella's and smittenkitchen's) but 2+ cups of sugar plus a cup of oil was daunting (maybe it was all the talk about eating healthy foods in class that's killing me) that i decided to fiddle with some muffin recipes and ended up with muffins chock full of apples = apple bites! i found this recipe online somewhere and tweaked it (i think it was for some diet program since it had points)

Apple Bites (makes 12)
1 1/4 c. skim milk
3/4 c. cornmeal
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
a little less than 1/4 c. honey (i didn't have a lot of honey left so this is why i used less)
2 Tbl plain yogurt
1 egg
3 medium apples, peeled and diced small (i used a granny, golden delicious and i think a mcintosh)
some cinnamon and brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a muffin pan. Toss the apple chunks in cinnamon and brown sugar, set aside. In a large bowl combine milk and cornmeal, let stand for 10 minutes. In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Whisk honey, yogurt and egg into the cornmeal mixture. Stir in apple and flour mixture. Spoon into the pan and bake for about 15-20 minutes.

*next time i want to try soaking oats in the milk instead of cornmeal. i like the kind of grainy texture you get from cornmeal but i'm thinking oats would make this much more moist. the apple bites weren't very sweet (which is nice) and the nutty bites of walnut helped make it extra tasty.