Eggless Chunky Apple Streusel Muffins

I think that I have already mentioned in my earlier posts about TH's love for muffins,as apparently his breakfast for over four years in Hong Kong was a muffin and a cup of coffee...and he never got bored of it . In fact, in his trips to Hong Kong he tries visiting the same breakfast joint. He cherishes those moments even now and always asks me to make them on a regular basis.I do bake them, but not as frequently as I am a bit worried on the amount of butter and flour that goes into them.

I had a pack of apples which were lying in my fruit basket for a while so I thought its better to use them in a cake/muffin. After a quick search on the net, I zeroed on Divya's chunky apple muffins.I started off thinking of making her version but changed my mind while making it and replaced egg with a mashed banana and also decided to make a healthy streusel topping and hence I tweaked the original recipe.The soft bites of the apple and a crunchy nutty streusel topping makes this muffin very tasty.Those muffins turned out so moist and fluffy that TH demanded another batch soon . I tried with the egg version next time and was happy to see that even my eggless version turned out as tasty as the egg version. Glad that my changes to the recipe worked.
I also have a very healthy version of Eggless whole wheat banana muffins in my blog,in case you are interested check out the recipe here. These are good as morning breakfast or as a snack anytime.

Eggless Chunky Apple Streusel Muffins:
(makes 9 big or 12 medium sized muffins)
Adapted from : Easy Cooking

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups All purpose flour
3/4 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Oil
1 large ripened Banana* or 1 1/2 medium sized ripened bananas
1/3 cup Milk
2 Apples,peeled cored and chopped
2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Salt

for Streusel topping***:
2 tbsp Muesli
2 tbsp Oats
1/4 cup All purpose flour
2 tbsp Walnuts,chopped
1/4 cup Brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground Cinnamon
2 tbsp melted unsalted Butter**
a pinch of Salt
Method:

• Pulse sugar in a mixer to a powder for approx 10-20 seconds.
• Sieve flour,cinnamon,baking powder and salt together for 3-4 times until the mixture is mixed properly.
• Meanwhile preheat your oven at 200 deg C(400 deg F) for 10 mins.
• Line the muffin molds and grease them with oil lightly.
• In a bowl mash banana to a smooth paste using your hand.
• Add milk and oil to it and mix well using a hand whisker until everything is well mixed.
• Add sugar to it and mix nicely.
• Add the dry ingredients of flour mixture which we sieved and fold it in the wet ingredient mixture carefully.Just fold in lightly,do not mix it vigorously.
• Fold in the cored and chopped apples in it and scoop 2-3 tbsp of batter to each muffin mold.Fill upto 2/3rds full.
• For streusel - mix all the ingredients oats,muesli,flour,chopped walnuts, cinnamon, melted butter and salt in a bowl until you get a crumble mixture.
• Top the muffins with 1 tbsp streusel mixture and bake them in oven at 160 deg C for 20-25 mins. After 20 mins keep an eye on the muffins and check whether they are cooked or not by using toothpick test.If your pricked toothpick comes clean then they are done.
• Cool them in the mold for 3-4 mins and then invert them on to the wire rack.While inverting the muffin do it on a plate to avoid the mess of falling streusel(if any).You can pop it into your mouth or use as granola,it taste really yumm.

Serve them warm or at room temperature.It stays good outside for 2 days or 3-4 days when refrigerated.

*With Egg - You can replace banana with 1 large egg in the recipe as the original recipe said.I have baked both the versions with egg as well as with banana and both came out extremely moist and yummy.It is your wish to make either egg or eggless version.
**You can use salted butter and avoid the salt in the recipe.
***The original Streusel topping is made up of 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar,5 tbsp softened butter,1/2 cup chopped walnuts and 1/2 tsp salt.You can even follow this recipe for a firm streusel topping.As I used oats and muesli in my streusel,some portion of it was falling off but had a nice and guilt free crunch of oats on top.
Notes:

• I halved the recipe with the ingredients exactly half of the measurements in the recipe and it worked out nice.Even though you halved the recipe use 1 medium ripened banana or 1 small egg in the recipe,and the other ingredients with exactly half the measurements.It yielded me 6 medium muffins for the recipe.