We took a family trip to a charming apple orchard in Indiana the other day. It was Evie’s first taste of fall tradition and I think she loved every minute of it! The weather was perfect — sunny and high 70s, but the smell of fall was certainly in the air. Bees were furiously gathering sweetness off fallen apples – they were so busy that they didn’t bother us even a little bit!

Although I’m always sad to say goodbye to summer, classic American fall rituals make me excited for the changing seasons. Apple picking, trips to the pumpkin patch, decorating the house for Halloween, a warm cup of chai tea in the afternoon…everything feels warm and cozy. I feel so blessed to have a little family of my own to share it all with.

We brought home several pounds of perfectly sweet and ripe apples. With some of the fruits of our labor I baked a batch of apple muffins. The inspiration for this recipe comes from my sister Meghan — I tweaked it to suit my tastes and to use up some extra ingredients hanging around.

Ingredients

3 apples, peeled
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped dates
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons flax seeds

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Chop the peeled apples. Using a cheese grater, grate 2 apples directly into a large bowl. Coarsely chop the third apple and add to bowl. In a small bowl, whisk eggs and sugar; add to apples. Stir in dates and let the mixture sit for 15 minutes.

In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and flax seeds. Set aside.

Stir butter and yogurt into apple mixture. Gently fold in the dry ingredients just until moistened. You don’t want to overwork the batter or else you will end up with dense muffins! As you can see, Evie was quite instrumental in the whole process 🙂
Grease a muffin pan and drop in batter (I use an ice cream scoop to keep things easy). Bake for 15 minutes. These are best eaten the day they are baked, but if you’d like to serve them the next day feel free to add in a bit more butter or yogurt to keep them moist.