Spiced Pumpkin and Apple Crumble Muffins

Steven Dotsch is the Speculaas Spice Master Chef at the Speculaas Spice Company. His inspiration to launch his Dutch grandmother's recipe of delicious, warm and sweet tasting speculaas mix in the United Kingdom comes from his love of eating truly authentic Dutch Speculaas - spiced biscuits.  He has now created a special spice mix which captures all of those flavours. It includes high grade cinnamon from Sri Lanka, cloves, ginger and 6 other spices. I started thinking about recipes to make with this spice and initially thought of cupcakes similar to my speculoos cupcakes. However, I had some pumpkin puree leftover from making my spiced pumpkin cream cheese swiss roll so I decided to create a recipe which included pumpkin puree. This is a very autumnal sounding recipe as it contains pumpkin, apple and a crumble topping. 

The spices smelt amazing and tasted even better. The spice mix worked well with the pumpkin and apple and I had a lot of compliments for these muffins. It's a very moist muffin which has a texture similar to bread pudding. You can clearly taste the pumpkin and the spices which really lifted the flavour of the muffin. I'd also recommend adding some pecan nuts which will give a crunch and another layer of flavour. My favourite part was the crumble topping which was sweet and crispy in contrast to the soft, dense muffin. 

I'm entering this to The No Waste Food Challenge which is run by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This month, it's guest hosted by Laura from I'd Much Rather Bake Than... I used up leftover pumpkin puree for this recipe and the end of a bag of oats for the crumble. The apples were also spare apples I had sitting on the table. 

 brown sugar, plain flour, milk, apples, eggs, pumpkin puree and spice mix 

 adding the spice mix to the flour

 adding chopped apples to the pumpkin mix 

 almost ready to bake... 

 adding the crumble topping 

 close up of the crumble topping 

 It has a bread pudding like consistency 

An original recipe by bakingaddict

For the muffins
225g plain flour
100g caster sugar
3 teaspoons speculaas spice mix
60mls milk
60mls vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped
285g pumpkin puree

For the crumble topping
120g butter
120g brown sugar
80g flour
80g oats
1 teaspoon speculaas spice mix

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar and speculaas spice mix. 
• In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, oil and milk with the pumpkin puree.
• Add in chopped apples.
• Now add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and mix. 
• Spoon into muffin cases. 
• Make the crumble topping by rubbing the butter and flour together until you get a breadcrumb consistency. 
• Add the oats, sugar and spice.
• Divide the crumble topping evenly between the muffin cases.
• Bake for approximately 18-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool or eat warm. 

Disclaimer: I was sent a pack of speculaas spice mix for review purposes. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions expressed are my own. This is not a paid post.