Happy Thanksgiving

Giving Thanks:

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Muffins

Lady Apples

Grapes

Chocolate Leaves

Apple Pie Muffins. Cupkins Thanksgiving

How do you make an apple pie with just one apple?

You make apple pie muffins! An unusual technique makes these different from your typical apple spice muffins. They really have the strong taste and texture of baked apple that you'd get from a pie.

My recipe is below and today Joanne's hosting this months Cupkins link party so after you check out my recipe hop on over to Ready, Set, Craft to add your Thanksgiving themed cupcake or muffin and check out the other recipes.

Apple Pie Muffins:

• 1 apple (any variety you like for baking)
• 1.5 cups flour
• 2/3 cup of sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 applesauce
• 1/3 cup milk (I use nonfat)
• 2 tablespoons (or more) of cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• Dash of nutmeg
• Juice from half a Lemon

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Peel and core your apple. Then slice it into rings about 1/8 of an inch thick. You need at least 12 slices. Don't worry if some rings break, when that happens I use the pieces to reconstruct a ring.

Squeeze Lemon juice over your slices and sprinkle with half your cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice. And add a dash of nutmeg.

Then sprinkle one spoon of sugar over the slices.

Gently toss with your fingers, so the rings are coated but aren't broken into pieces.

Set the apple slices aside while you make the batter in a separate bowl.

Mix flour, remaining sugar, baking powder, salt and the rest of your cinnamon and pumpkin pie spices. You could add more cinnamon to the batter if you like- to be truthful I never measure the cinnamon- I just toss in what looks (and smells) good.

Now add all of your wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.

Coat a large muffin pan with nonstick spray and then it's time to start building the each little muffin pie- using that special technique.

Start with a little bit of batter at the bottom of each muffin well. You don't want too much batter- just enough to coat the bottom.

Add a slice of apple to each well.

Cover the slice with a little more batter and add another apple slice to each well.

Use the remaining batter to cover the apple slice in each muffin well. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Makes 6 large muffins.

The great thing about layering the slices is that when you bite into this muffin you get a lot of apple flavor and texture just like an apple pie.

Go ahead, have a slice.

Split it with friends

Or just eat the entire thing yourself!

Now head on over to Joanne's blog to see her recipe for spiced pumpkin mini cupcakes

And link up your Thanksgiving muffin or cupcake idea.

And since you stuck with me this long I'll give you another tip. The little apples in the photos are called Lady Apples. They're an heirloom variety- in fact the oldest variety of apple known! Information on them notes that they were first cultivated by the Romans but may go back as far as the Etruscans (a pre-roman civilization). Some people think they are called lady apples because elegant ladies used to carry these petit treats in a small pocket of their skirts to freshen their breath in Renaissance times. In France during the early 16oo's they were thought of as royal apples and grown in the garden of Louis XII. And in this country during colonial times they were a special Christmas treat.

They are delicious! I tried them for the first time this season and they are my new favorite! If you see them I highly recommend picking some up.

Cupkins: Leftover Cranberry Sauce? Make Delicious Muffins!

Ok so it's not the first Monday of the month but Joanne and I couldn't let Thanksgiving go by without a second helping of Cupkins.

Today I've got a recipe and a tip all rolled into one. I don't know about you but around my house we always have leftover cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving and to be honest- we never finish it. So I started thinking about ways that I could use it to make something else totally different. That's how I came up with the idea for these Cranberry orange muffins.

You'll need:

• 1/2 cup cranberry sauce- we get the "whole cranberry sauce" in the can but whatever you have on your table will be fine.
• The zest from one one orange
• 1/3 C walnuts (optional)
• 1.5 cups flour
• 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup sugar (depends on how sweet your cranberry sauce is to begin with. I usuallt use 3/4 of a cup.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup of nonfat milk

Preheat oven to 375.

Add all the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, salt, baking powder) to a mixing bowl, add wet ingredients (egg, milk, oil cranberry sauce) and mix until combined. Add orange zest and nuts and again mix until combined. Don't over stir or the muffins will be tough and chewy!

Spray your muffin tins with nonstick spray or line with muffin cups. Fill each cup evenly.

Makes 6 large muffins or 12 regular size. Bake for 18 min (for large muffins) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from pan and let cool.

They came out so moist and delicious! And it was so easy to use the cranberry from a can- that now it's the only way I make cranberry muffins.

And If you already know you'll have more than enough cranberry sauce for your holiday dinner why wait until after Thanksgiving? Make these muffins the day before and have a nice light holiday morning breakfast after you put the Turkey in the oven.

Be sure to head on over to Ready, Set, Craft! to see Joanne's Thanksgiving Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting by clicking on the Cupkins logo below. They look delicious!

And if you want to see my Cupkins recipes from earlier this month- click here.

November Cupkins: Chocolate Turkey Cupcakes and Corn Muffin Stuffin

It's the first Monday of the month and time for another Cupkins post. Thanksgiving is just around the corner so this month's theme is all about Turkey Day!

If you're a regular reader you know that Cupkins is normally a collaboration of cupcakes and muffins between Joanne of Ready, Set, Craft! and myself. Since Joanne has been sick with the flu I'm playing substitute and made some cupcakes too. Today I've got Turkey Cupcakes and Corn Muffin Stuffing.

Let's start with the corn muffin stuffing:

It's perfect for Thanksgiving but easy enough to make for any meal because I use store bought muffins (this is probably the only Cupkins post you'll ever get from me using a store bought muffin).

The recipe makes enough stuffing for 6 but if you have a larger crowd or your family likes to eat a lot of stuffing with the meal go ahead and make more it's a very "loose" and adjustable recipe. In the pictures you'll see I cut the recipe in half- simply because I didn't want to make stuffing for 6 so close to the holiday. You could do the same for a regular meal.

You'll need:

• 6 Large Corn Muffins (4 regular and 2 low fat- you want a few that are dryer and the low fat does the trick)
• 1 package of bulk turkey sausage, about 1lb (you can use regular, we just like turkey).
• 1/4-1/2 cup chicken broth
• 3 sprigs of Sage
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1 medium shallot
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 tbl olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Start by lightly toasting the pecans in a dry skillet over medium heat. When the pecans just start to toast (they'll smell nutty and the oil in the nuts will sizzle a little) remove them from the pan and set aside.

Finely dice the celery and shallot

Spray the skillet used for the nuts with nonstick spray and brown the sausage and drain off excess oil (if you can't find bulk turkey sausage you can remove the casing from links).

Add the shallot, celery and oil. Cook until they are translucent.

Now turn off the heat remove from skillet to a baking dish, add nuts and stir the mixture together.

In a large mixing bowl break the muffins up into chunks.

Chop the sage leaves up and add them into the same bowl with the corn muffins and stir together. Combine with the sausage mixture in the baking dish. Add salt and pepper to taste (a few good shakes is usually enough).

Warm 1/2 a cup of chicken broth in the same skillet you used for the sausage nuts and veggies.

Add warm broth a little at a time stirring the stuffing mixture until the desired consistency is reached. Remember the stuffing will dry a little in the oven.

Bake covered at the same temp as the turkey until nicely browned (usually about 30 minutes). If your making this for a weeknight meal bake at 350.

The sage and pecans taste delicious with the corn muffins!

Now for dessert- Chocolate Turkey Cupcakes.

You can use your favorite chocolate cake recipe or a store bought mix. I used a store bought one to save time.

• 1 box chocolate cake mix
• 1 can of chocolate or vanilla frosting that comes with sprinkles (or you could by little container of round confetti and nonpareil sprinkles)
• Candy Corn
• 1 package of a scalloped edge cookies

Start with cooled chocolate cupcakes and frost the tops.

Next we are going to use frosting as glue to stick some sprinkles onto the cookie. Use a toothpick to dot a very small amount of frosting onto each scallop only going halfway around. Place a sprinkle onto each dot of frosting.

The undecorated half of the will get stuck into the cupcake and become the tail- but only do this just before serving! I found out the hard way today that the cookies get mushy from sitting in the frosting and fall over. This might not be the case for a thicker cookie- but the thin ones I used only stood up for a few hours.

Cut a few pieces off of the orange part of a candy corn and mush it into a triangle beak shape. The candy corn is remarkably clay-like once you start mushing it up.

Use frosting to stick the beak to the top of another whole candy corn.

Make a a little dot of frosting where you want an eye and stick on another sprinkle.

Now you have a cute little turkey body ready to stick into the front of the cupcake.

Last but not least add more sprinkles for color.

You can also add one candy corn on side for wings- I'm not sure if I like the wings or not, you decide.

And here's the whole flock!

Using white frosting like I did for the picture at the top might look more like a turkey, but we are partial to chocolate in this house!

And finally in honor of the biggest food holiday of the year Joanne and I will be brining you an "extra helping" of cupkins with two more great recipes later this month!