Big Apple Muffins

...Because we are moving to New York!

It's strange for me to sometimes write about personal things on a recipe blog. Many people who read this know us, and are therefore aware of our life updates. But we've also made so many friends in the blogopshere with whom we want to share our news. So if you know us, just scroll to the recipe.

Back to the excitement: After graduating in May, we are moving to NYC, where Alex will attend medical school at Mount Sinai, and I will attend law school at Columbia. We're super happy, as both of our first-choice schools are just a few blocks (and two parks) away from each other. The best part is that Two Fat Als will live on -- though we'll have to change the tag line from "cooking in college" to "cooking in graduate school" or "cooking under stress" or something. Suggestions are welcome.

To celebrate, we've baked ourselves some big apple muffins, loosely based on this recipe. We even invested in an extra-large muffin pan for the occasion. These big apple muffins are kind of like the apple cinnamon swirl muffins that we made earlier, but they're bigger and better and have walnuts and a strudel topping. Deliciously moist with a good crunchy topping, these muffins are surely a sign of good things to come.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups shredded apple
1/2 cup chopped apples
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cups walnuts

(strudel topping)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375. Line muffin pan with muffin cups. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a medium-sized bowl. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and then vanilla. Stir in apples and walnuts. Slowly stir in flour mixture until just combined. To make strudel topping, use your fingers to mix the ingredients until it feels coarse. Spoon batter into muffin cups, and sprinkle strudel on top. Cook for about 18 minutes for regular-sized muffins, or about 20-25 minutes for larger muffins.