My husband and I, along with my parents and sibling, went apple picking this year. Maybe it was because of the frost, but the apples were not as sweet and crunchy as last year's. Therefore, they weren’t so yummy to eat on their own, so we had an opportunity to try out several recipes that utilized apples. We were looking through my mother’s cabinet of recipe books and came across one that we wanted to try. Thanks to my parents, I frequently enjoy the benefits of being multilingual. One of many is being able to read in my native language.

We made some for our friends and these muffins are ready for transport!

Orangepage is a Japanese food magazine that published a book titled “Sweets Classroom” or “お菓子教室” in 2004. My husband and I have been going through this 344-page book, trying different types of recipes every time we visit my parents. There’s been one we’ve really enjoyed for using the bushel of apples we picked. With a request emailed to me last night to post something for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday that’s easy, we thought this would be perfect to share.

We’ve doubled the lot for this recipe to feed our more Western-sized tummies and families to yield 10 – 12 muffins depending upon the size of muffin cups you use.

Ingredients: For the muffin

• 100 g of unsalted room temperature butter (about 90% of a stick of butter)

• 140 g of sugar (⅝ cup)

• 2 eggs

• a pinch of salt

• 120 ml milk (½ cup of milk)

Muffin ingredients to sift:

• 200 g all-purpose flour (about 1¾ cup)

• ½ teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

For the “filling”

• 2 apples

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 3 tablespoons lemon

Directions:

Filling:

1. Peel and core the apples. Dice the apples. (The recipe really calls for the apples to be sliced thin but I like to know I’m eating apples so I dice it instead.) In a small pot, mix apples, sugar, lemon juice on high heat. Mix with a wooden ladle until the liquid has evaporated. (If you don’t have lemon juice, no worries. You can make this recipe without it.) Take off heat and place it in a shallow dish to cool.

Muffin: (pre-heat oven to 335 degrees)

2. Cream the butter and sugar in a medium- sized bowl. (Cream means to whisk together the sugar and butter until smooth and creamy and the color changes from yellow to white.) Whisk in eggs and salt.

3. Add half of the milk into the bowl. Mix half the sifted dry ingredients into the bowl. Add the remainder of the milk into the bowl and mix. Mix the remainder of the dry ingredients into the bowl quickly and well.

4. Add the apple filling into the mixture.

5. Use a spoon to and fill the muffin cups about 80%. Place them in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the muffins bounce back when you press the center with your finger. Place on a cooling rack to cool.