LESLIE BUDEWITZ: In my first year out of law school, I set about teaching myself to cook. I knew how to bake—my late mother’s great kitchen skill—but she’d rarely made muffins, which I loved. Still do. I bought a couple of cute little muffin cookbooks I still use, and a spiral bound pack of index cards to write out recipes I culled from other sources. These Apple Raisin Muffins were one of the first entries. The bears left us a decent apple crop this year, so I made a batch. They freeze well, and I’m looking forward to the taste of autumn all winter long.
Do you have a favorite recipe from your early days of cooking?
PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing.
Scroll down to the 💕 for the link.
Apple Raisin Muffins
4 cups diced apple (no need to peel; 1 medium apple is about 1 cup)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup raisins
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
Heat oven to 325 degrees.
In a medium bowl, combine apples and sugar; set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
Add the apples and sugar and stir to combine.
Use the empty bowl to mix eggs, oil, and vanilla, then add to flour mixture. Stir in raisins and walnuts.
Spoon into muffin tin. Bake 20-25 minutes.
Makes 12-15 muffins.
ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook
Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.
“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary
Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!
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TO ERR IS CUMIN:A Spice Shop Mystery (Seventh St. Books, out now in paper, ebook, and audio)
From the cover: One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . .
Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner.
Pepper soon concludes that the chair and its stash may belong to young Talia Cook, new in town and nowhere to be seen. Boz Bosworth, an unemployed chef Pepper’s tangled with in the past, shows up looking for the young woman, but Pepper refuses to help him search. When Boz is found floating in the Ship Canal, only a few blocks from Talia’s apartment, free furniture no longer seems like such a bargain.
On the hunt for Talia, Pepper discovers a web of connections threatening to ensnare her best customer. The more she probes, the harder it gets to tell who’s part of an unsavory scheme of corruption—and who might be the next victim.
Between her quest for an elusive herb, helping her parents remodel their new house, and setting up the Spice Shop’s first cooking class, Pepper’s got a full plate. Dogged by a sense of obligation to find the rightful owner of the hidden treasure, she keeps on showing up and asking questions.
One mistake, and she could find herself cashing out. . .
Available at
Amazon *
Barnes & Noble *
Books-A-Million *
Bookshop.org * And your local booksellers!
Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024.
A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.
Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.
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Thank you so much for the delicious sounding Apple Raisin Muffins recipe! Love muffins and love a recipe that is both great for a holiday, but also one that would be great any time of the year.
ReplyDeleteOne of my first things to conquer after getting out on my own was making homemade rolls. There's nothing quite like the smell of bread coming out of the oven and slathered with butter. Thankfully, my mom was an excellent bread maker and was very patient in teaching me some of my favorites (once I finally decided that to live one much each and to have something that didn't taste like cardboard one much learn to cook). Even to this day, fresh baked bread (of any kind - which I might add extends to muffins), is one of my favorites to make, smell and eat.
2clowns at arkansas dot net
Kay, you are so right -- I don't think there's anyone who doesn't love the smell and taste of fresh-baked bread!
DeleteThose look very yummy and even borderline healthy. Thank you for sharing the recipe. I have one recipe from my college days that is super simple and tasty, hamburger beef wellington. Don't let the fancy name fool you. All you need is ground beef, brocoli crowns (frozen or fresh) mozzarella cheese, and Pillsbury crescent roll dough. Ground the beef, cook the broccoli, shred the cheese and mix it together. Lay out half the rolls not taking them apart, in fact pinch the seams together. Spread the mixture onto the bottom layer of dough then lay the top layer on pinching the seams and around the edges. Then pop it into the over at the temperature and time for the crecents from the package. Serve with sour cream.
ReplyDeleteFun! When I was a kid, my mother dropped a can of Pillsbury crescent roll dough on the kitchen floor while she was putting away the groceries. Those puppies popped all over the kitchen. She hadn't been planning to bake them that day, but oh well! We laughed about that for years.
DeleteMeatloaf, my mom taught me how to make it and to this day, I stay somewhat true to her basic recipe. One of my comfort foods on a cool fall/winter day.
ReplyDeleteNice. Today would be that day, in my neck of the woods!
DeleteThese sound like a tasty treat.
ReplyDelete"Add the apples and sugar and stir to combine." You already said to combine the apples and sugar. Do you mean "add the apples and flour"?
Thanks! And no. I mean add the apple and sugar mixture into the flour mixture, as shown.
Deleteyum thank you
ReplyDelete