Tag Archives: Marion Cunningham

Yeast Raised Waffles

In our house we call these “Awful Waffles”. Probably not the best name if I want to entice you to keep reading and try them. In fact, they are absolutely heavenly. Crisp on the outside but delicate and fluffy in the centre, and just a touch chewy.

I can’t remember how we started calling them by that name, but my daughter’s friends would always request “Awful Waffles” for breakfast when they slept over. The waffle batter needs to be made the night before. The yeast and long overnight rise give these waffles an unparalleled flavour and texture. They stay crispy long after they have cooled, although I doubt they’ll hang around that long.

The recipe comes from a charming gem of a cookbook, originally published in 1987. It’s called “The Breakfast Book”, by the late Marion Cunningham. I have shelves full of cookbooks, and this is one of the few that I actually use all the time. The recipe for her raw apple muffins has stood the test of time and is still one of my favourite muffins.

Here’s a video showing you how the batter is put together. Please note that in the actual recipe, the eggs and some baking soda are added in the morning, just before cooking. In the video I added the eggs at the beginning because I screwed up!

Usually I serve them with berries and maple syrup, but they also make an excellent ice cream sandwich! You’ll thank me.

Raw Apple Muffins

Before we go any further, let me just state, for the record,  I’m really not a muffin person. If I’m going to eat copious amounts of sugar, fat and flour, I would prefer to ingest it in the form of a cookie. The fact that some people delude themselves into thinking that muffins are actually a healthy way to start the day irritates me. Your Raisin Bran Muffin is 360 calories and contains 10 grams of fat! You would be better off starting your day with a Chocolate Dipped Donut. with only 210 calories and 8 grams of fat! My husband is a muffin person. Enough said!

However, I digress. This is not a post about delusional breakfast idiots. Rather, it is a story about a wonderful Raw Apple Muffin, created by the incomparable Marion Cunningham, from her lovely little gem of a cookbook, “The Breakfast Book.” I meant to blog about this muffin last summer. I even got so far as baking them and taking the pictures, but then I must have gotten distracted with this.  But I was gently dragged back to these muffins by my daughter. She is dating a muffin person and he was coming for a visit. She wanted to bake something for him. I agreed that these were outstanding muffins, high praise indeed, coming from me, the notorious muffin hater. I took the pictures and she baked.

I hesitate to even call these muffins.  They are more like apples and raisins held together with a bit of batter. When you are mixing the batter you will probably look at the ingredient list and think you missed some liquid. You didn’t. This a supremely dense batter. It is best to use an ice cream scoop to transfer the batter to the muffin tin.

I have adapted Marion’s recipe slightly by gilding the lily. When these muffins come out of the oven, I dip the top of them in melted butter and then roll them in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. I am under no delusion that these are healthy, but they are delicious. The huge quantity of apples and raisins makes them super moist. The sugar cinnamon topping adds a bit of crunch. Muffin nirvana!

Click here to print the recipe for Raw Apple Muffins.