Celebrating the great Martin Luther King and Inauguration Day on this cold Jan. 20. If you are home celebrating, enjoy these muffins and other snacks linked below.
Bring all the hostages home.
Inauguration Muffins
When I tasted these muffins sto;; warm out of the oven, they were so moist they needed no butter. There was a hint of orange, a nutty crunch, and a just the right amount of sweetness. I made a batch to serve on Inauguration Day. Watching the Inauguration can make you hungry! These muffins are the perfect snack to munch the afternoon away! Healthy, delicious and perfect for celebrating America’s freedom.
Foodie Lit
How people survive adversity and triumph despite the meanness of their lives moves our emotions. Without sentimentality, Catherine has given us that inspiration. She shared, “At a time when our media, our popular culture, and our literature seem to dwell so heavily on the negative aspects of human nature, I wanted the novel to focus—in an uplifting but down-to-earth and non-sentimentalized way—on the triumph of kindness and generosity over mean-spiritedness and the selfish pursuit of self-interest. I’d intended the stories to be sort of an antidote to the pervasive ‘gloom and doom’ with which we were being bombarded with daily.”
Catherine deftly creates her characters, realistic in their goodness and their heartlessness. She told me, “I live the lives I write about.” Hallie Jo is a life worth reading about, an inspiration for our new year.
Inauguration Day Muffins
Yield: 18 muffins
Muffins
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 medium eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons grated lemon or orange zest
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Streusel Topping
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup quick oats
1/4 cup butter, softened
Drizzle
2 tablespoons almond milk
1/2 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
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Heat oven to 350°F. Spray muffin tins with oil spray and set aside.
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Cream butter, gradually adding sugar and beating well. Add eggs and orange zest.
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Mix together.
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In separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to creamed mixture.
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Add 3/4 cup apple sauce. Stir in pecans.
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Pour batter into prepared muffin tins. Top with Streusel.
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Bake 15-20 minutes, or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
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Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then remove from tins and cool.
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Combine 1 tablespoon almond milk with confectioner’s sugar. Add ¼ teaspoon vanilla. Drizzle over each muffin.
Expandthetable suggestions
Dairy free: Use non-dairy margarine in place of butter.
Nut Free: Omit nuts.
Diabetic friendly: Use stevia or other sugar substitutes in place of sugar in muffin batter and in place of confectioners’ sugar for muffin drizzle. Use conversion measurements according to manufacturer.
More fiber: Use 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of all-purpose flour.
Chocolate lovers: Add ½ cup chocolate chips.
