So, I made an apple upside down cake recently. And that left me with a lot of peels and cores. And I hated to just throw them out, so I decided to use them to make apple jelly. But my apples were a sweet variety that didn't have enough pectin to set the jelly. So what I've ended up with instead is apple syrup. It's delicious, but it's not remotely spreadable. It's about the consistency of maple syrup.

So now I have just shy of a litre of apple syrup. Great. Well, it would go really well on some nice whole wheat waffles, I think. So, I set about putting together an overnight yeasted waffle batter...

At which point I notice that my sourdough starter really, really needs to be fed. So I add a bit of starter to the waffles, but that still leaves me with a lot of starter. And I really hate being forced to actually discard my discard. So, I start hunting through my discard recipes looking for something that'll use up enough starter that I can feed the rest. And this muffin recipe was the first thing I found that looked quick, easy, and tasty enough for me to want to make. (I'm still going to have to make bread or crackers or something in the next few days, but this buys me a little time for now.)

So that's the long chain of events that lead to me making these muffins. As an added bonus, the cinnamon flavour complements the apple syrup very nicely!

Cinnamon Sourdough Muffins

Slightly adapted from The Southern Lady Cooks

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce¹ (optional)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 c. milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 c. (100% hydration) sourdough starter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a muffin tin (or line it with muffin/cupcake papers).
2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugars and mix well.
3. Mix in melted butter, vanilla, milk, and egg.
4. Stir in starter.
5. Scoop batter into prepared tin.
6. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 18-20 minutes².

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¹ I found these muffins just a touch on the dry side. It's possible that they ended up slightly overdone due to the unusually high oven temperature. But the batter was also extremely stiff, so I wonder if maybe it just needed a bit more moisture added to it. In future, I think I'd try adding a little bit of applesauce to these to see if that would help them to bake up a little moister. The apple flavour isn't likely to come through at all, but if it does, it should complement the cinnamon anyway. ^Back
2 The original recipe calls for baking at 200°C (400°F) for 17-20 minutes, but notes that you can use either a 6-(large-)well or 12-("regular"-)well muffin tin. I baked mine at 400°F and they were done after 15 minutes. I think I'd stick with an 18-minute, 350°F bake for my "regular" (5cm) size muffins next time. ^Back