Thanksgiving came and went so quickly—and I hope you all had a happy one! Before I get into posting some Christmasy recipes, I wanted to share about some muffins I’ve been enjoying this fall season—Applesauce-Apple Butter Muffins! After all, it’s still Fall for a little while longer! 🙂 And these muffins really taste like fall, flavored with spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. They also have a nice sweetness and moist texture because of the applesauce and apple butter stirred into the batter. And another special add-in is the finely-chopped bits of apple to give them even more apple flavor!

I really love the taste of these muffins! And they’re great for breakfast, snack time, coffee time and tea time! 🙂 Just wanted to share this tip, too—when I was mixing the batter, I wasn’t sure if I should use a liquid or dry measuring cup for the applesauce and apple butter, so I did a little research and found that, to measure the applesauce and apple butter, you should use a dry measuring cup since they are semi-liquids. Hope that info helps!

These muffins bake up nicely with rounded tops and I do recommend sprinkling the tops of the muffins with the coarse sugar before baking—it adds just the right amount of sweetness and a slight crustiness to the muffin tops! Also, I think these muffins work best with your favorite sweet variety of apples—I chopped up a couple of small Gala apples, but use whatever you like!

Speaking of apples, that reminds me of Proverbs 25:11 (NLT) which says, Timely advice is lovely, like golden apples in a silver basket. What a beautiful picture that brings to mind for Autumn and the holiday season—our wise and caring words of advice, hope, and encouragement can be a valuable gift to others, like a glistening silvery basket of golden apples. When we speak the right words at the right time, they can make a beautiful difference in someone’s day, especially during the busy holiday season! We may never know the impact our words have on others, but they just could be the perfect words they need to hear in that moment. What a beautiful gift that can be to someone, and it’s a gift we can so easily give. When we give and share from our hearts, our gracious words and actions are often the best gifts of all.

I just looked out my window tonight and there’s a light dusting of snow! Maybe winter is closer than I thought!