Molasses and caraway apple muffins

New ingredients always intrigue me: I love trying new flavors in my kitchen. I got even more interested in baking with different flours after making Alice Medrich's fabulous chestnut pound cake and also after purchasing Kim Boyce's fantastic cookbook; Kim's carrot muffins turned out delicious, so when I saw a new recipe for muffins made with a bit of spelt flour I had to try them - these are made with molasses and apples and come from Dan Lepard's delicious column at The Guardian.

Molasses and caraway apple muffins
from Dan Lepard’s column at The Guardian

100g unsalted butter, melted
50ml canola oil
50g molasses
1 cup (175g) light brown sugar, packed
3 medium eggs
3 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoon caraway seeds
150g all purpose flour
150g spelt flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
3 small apples, peeled, cored and diced
flaked almonds, to finish

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F; butter a 12-hole muffin pan or line it with paper cases.
Whisk the butter, oil, molasses and sugar until smooth, then beat in the eggs one at a time, until evenly mixed. Add the vanilla and caraway, mix well, then add the flours, baking powder and salt, and stir just to combine. Fold in the apples, divide the mixture between the cases, filling them almost to the top, and scatter almonds on top. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Remove from the oven, cool in the pan over a wire rack for 5 minutes then carefully remove the muffins from the pan and transfer to the wire rack.

Makes 12 – I halved the recipe above using 1 ridiculously large egg and 1 ridiculously large apple; I used a muffin pan with 1/3 cup (80ml) capacity cavities and got 7 muffins