Mississippi Spice Muffins for Busy Mornings!

Our family has always felt that it was important to eat together as a family as often as possible.  During the school week, this meant breakfast and supper.  During the weekend, it meant all three meals.  Mealtime is such a wonderful time to talk to your children and share their experiences of the day.  It also provides you an additional time to pray together as a family.  Many teachable moments occur during our family mealtimes.  I should emphasize that our mealtimes are spent at the table, not in front of the television. 

Breakfast can be very hectic, so when my boys were little, I came up with a simple method to reduce any fussing about what we were going to eat.  They always knew that Monday was Muffin Monday, Tuesday was Toast Tuesday (cinnamon toast, cheese toast, peanut butter toast), Wednesday was Waffle Wednesday, Thursday was Thirsty Thursday (nutrient packet fruit smoothies) and Friday was Free Friday (anything goes!). Weekends were also considered "free" and we often sat down to larger breakfasts. I must add that each day was not complete without fruit and milk.  A friend of mine once asked how I got up and made muffins from scratch each Monday.  I always prepared the ingredients the night before, so a simple mixing and baking was all that was necessary.

I thought I would share one of our family's Muffin Monday favorites with you.  It is a terrific recipe for anytime of the year, but the spices make it a wonderful choice for a crisp fall day.

Presenting the starting line-up:
1 cup soft butter                                                                   1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups sugar                                                                         1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs                                                                                   2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups applesauce (preferably unsweetened)                          4 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon                                                1 cup nuts, chopped
2 teaspoons ground allspice                                                    Powdered Sugar

(Camera cast an unusual whitish color on top of the applesauce.  Please note, this is not fungus!!)

Okay, I know that I am new to blogging, but do the "cooking bloggers" possess three arms?  I just can't take a decent picture while stirring in ingredients.   I would probably share more recipes if I had three arms!  Here it goes anyway!  

Cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs, one at a time.  Mix in applesauce and spices.  This is a forgiving recipe and I didn't have cloves, so left them out this time.  Sift together salt, soda, and flour.  Add to applesauce mixture and beat well.  Stir in nuts. You will end up with a lovely caramel colored batter!
Bake the muffins right away or refrigerate until ready to bake.  I did the latter, so the batter holds the shape of the scoop. 

Bake in lightly greased muffin pan or in muffin cups at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. If the batter has been refrigerated, bake for 15-18 minutes.   While the muffins are cooking, enjoy the wonderful "fall" aroma being emitted from your oven.  Apples, cinnamon, and cloves always remind me of the cool, crisp, leaf raking weather of fall.  Let cool on a wire rack.

 Sift powdered sugar on top before serving.   Don't they look like snow capped mountains! 

The batter will keep in the refrigerator for awhile.   The original recipe states that the batter will keep "indefinitely", but I wouldn't do that for several reasons.  Number one, we eat them too quickly.  Number two, yuck!  I just can't imagine opening up a container of batter that I had made months ago and baking a batch of muffins.  Just doesn't seem healthy!

I found this much loved recipe in a Southern Sideboards cookbook given to me as a wedding gift 29 years ago!  It is a great cookbook!  I use it often.  If your local bookstore does not carry this cookbook, it can be found at the following link:

MS Junior League Southern Sideboard Cookbook

I end by saying that if you decide to use my Monday-Friday breakfast method, don't forget to add in dried cereal somewhere in the line-up. To this day, my boys will not eat dried cereal! They will eat any type of cooked cereal such as oatmeal, cream of wheat, and even my two childhood favorites, Ralston and Malt-O-Meal, but cold cereal...forget about it! Do you think this will be a topic of conversation with their future wives?!

I will be linking this week to these terrific blogs:

On the Menu Monday

A Favorite Things Saturday
Ivy and Elephants Wednesday 

Time Travel Thursday 

Debbie-Debbiedoos
Welcome Home Wednesday

Women Living Well 

Blessings from Still Woods!