The creation of these is a bit of a saga, so buckle up (or skip straight to the recipe). I have been making snickerdoodles for years and absolutely love them. They are however a little on the greasy side at times. The recipe calls for quite a lot of oil and sometimes the dough can be oozy. I read recently that it is possible to replace the oil in baking with apple sauce, so I decided to try out the substitution on snickerdoodles. I started out keeping the recipe exactly the same, just replacing the oil with apple sauce. It didn't create a dough but rather a thick batter though, so I added flour. Worried that I was turning them into bricks (I didn't realise that apple sauce is itself a rising agent) I added more of the two rising agents as well to compensate. I rolled the little balls of almost-dough in cinnamon sugar and baked them as per normal.
What came out of the oven had risen very well and had a light fluffy texture that was more cake like than resembling any cookie I have ever had. The flavour was also a little washed out. SO I went back to the bowl and added a little more vanilla and some cinnamon and then baked them in muffin cups instead. The texture was excellent, somewhere between a muffin and a cupcake, but the flavour was still not there. Having only made 4 cookies and 2 muffins, I put the rest of the dough away and left it for the morrow.
On the morrow, I tried adding a little lime juice, thinking that the acidity would help accentuate other flavours and fix the washed out seeming flavour of the muffin. It was good, but still missing something. I tried a smidge of butter smeared across the hot crumb of the muffin and that did it. It fixed the flavour. What had been missing was the richness that the oil brings. Something else I couldn't fix on this particular batch was the sweetness. The batter was just too sweet for a muffin but it wasn't quite a cupcake. In future iterations I planned to cut the sugar and maybe add some semi blitzed oats to make the texture definitively muffinny.
Given that the missing element appeared to be richness, I added a little milk to half the remaining batter. It came out much richer and nicer (due to a teething issue though with Little Bit they stayed in a little too long and so were a little drier. Hard to give a definitive pronouncement under such conditions.) I served it up with some of my home made mascarpone and a little quince jelly and they were tasty (and also made me think that I should make sweet scones to put the mascarpone on...)
I used the final quarter of the batter by adding a little milk again, as well as a handful of oats and some Aloha Spiced Cacao. They came out beautifully, both in flavour and texture, bar being slightly on the dense side. I served them up with a spread of mascarpone and some cinnamon and more Aloha Spiced Cacao over the top. Scrumptious!
Trying to replicate the final batch to double check it, I was a little short of apple sauce, but not much so I went with it anyway, figuring the dough would be less wet. I made the cookie recipe as per usual, just cutting the sugar and adding a little cream and some extra spice to the batter. I also used only 1 egg white instead of 2 full eggs because Hubby used some eggs between my checking for ingredients and then making these a little later. I might try them with the full contingent of eggs next time... As cookies the same thing happened as the first time (it was worth a trial though), but as muffins they were great! I didn't end up adding oats this time, but might another time, but having tried them out on a number of people, I am told they are a success and so ready for posting. Still slightly sweet though, so maybe cut that a little. I am posting what I did though.
And so, with no further ado.... Apple Snickerdoodle Muffins!
Ingredients:
3/4 c apple sauce (about 2 apples' worth)
1 c sugar (or a little less)
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 egg white (or two full eggs... oops)
2 1/2 c flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao
2 tbsp cream
1/4 - 1/2 c milk
1) Beat the apple sauce and the sugar together. Add the other wet ingredients, mixing well, then the other ingredients.
2) Spoon into muffin cups to about 2/3 full. Bake at 180°C for 15 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.
These might get a little more tweaking in time, but I am really pleased with these! Little Bit, Hubby and the neighbours approve! They work well on their own, or with butter, mascarpone or jam. They are still a little on the sweet side, and maybe a little dense, but very tasty!