Apple Moist Cornbread Muffins

At Walmart, while looking for a pastry blender (didn't find one), I saw a cheap ($1.89) 6 cup cupcake tin. I got one. And later, while using it, I made a nice discovery.

I'm not much into cupcakes and didn't want put much money in a tin, so this cheap one was right up my alley. It was lightweight and coated with a dark nonstick coating.

I had a box of DH white layer cake mix on hand. I mixed that up, made one layer with half of it and six cupcakes with the other. With no cupcake liners, I greased and floured the cups but I think the cupcakes would have fallen right out of the tin without doing that. They cooked beautifully and evenly. A good buy, I'd say.

But plain white cupcakes are just plain white cupcakes. Maybe I'll learn how to make that filling for Boston Creme Pie and pipe some inside the cakes and then dip the tops in melted chocolate.

I haven't made cornbread muffins in many decades. I just don't care that much for them. But I did want to see how my new, cheap muffin/cupcake tin would work for those.

So, I made a batch from scratch. They were OK. How good can a cornbread muffin be, anyway? If there was anything definitely wrong with them, it was that they were a little dry.

The next day, I made another batch. I had half a small Washington state red delicious apple in the fridge. I peeled and grated it finely, adding it to the cornbread batter. You wouldn't want cornbread muffins to be any more moist!

I've used applesauce in lots of recipes to replace part of the shortening to cut down on calories and to make things more moist. Til now, I never gave thought to adding it to cornbread muffins. But, it works very well.

You might know there's a catch. That last batch was all gone in an hour. I believe it's called pigging out.