Resurrection Muffins

They taste like Easter morning.

Even now, imagining them in my head for a moment, I crave to make them. If only my apples in the fridge hadn't gone bad, and does the color matter? Do we even have any flour in the house, and eggs... I can't even get eggs for my usual breakfast while we're in a price hike and shortage. There is an egg in this, right? Oh duh, I can easily confirm that with a glance at the recipe I just dug up. Of course, an egg. That's how baking usually works, isn't it?

Tomorrow's out for the count too: I'm lucky enough to have double jobs, and the egg crisis won't be solved that quick. But I should keep it in mind like I used to, for my next chance.

The drizzle of cinnamon glaze on the uneven terrain of the muffins' tops, that never seem to lose their moist freshness even days later, almost as if they are perpetually under-done but in the way you savor preciously like a bowl of cookie dough. Bits of apple crunch softly inside. Or the texture when you pull them out of the container, how they lightly stick together.

My mom made them every year for Easter morning, and now I think of that and also salivate at the thought of Easter "feast," even simplified to how my family does it now -- we still have the ham with applesauce or pineapple, the bean salad, maybe little bagels... and that's looking to a date far past today, skipping over my birthday month entirely to get there. But oh how I wish to be preset all the same! Maybe the real problem here is writing while hungry, but the dinner I have in mind for tonight still cannot compare. Alas, if my silly jokes and sneaky stories of time travel were real after all! I'd be sliding up to that table and scooping up some bites before anyone turns around. Putting the space-time status at risk to fill my tummy with that most covetous grub. Not like it's even complicated, top favorite rank, or the "best" thing I've ever eaten in life... but that's all I'd ask for in a meal materialized at this moment. It's a familiar taste of home.

Much like the tasty but straightforward components to our usual Easter meal, I doubt these muffins have been in the family for generations either. I seem to recall a printed recipe card or page my mom kept, photocopied from a cookbook (indeed, upon further search, I found this photo of it). Rather than a tradition passed on, my guess would be that it's one she pioneered for herself, and for us. Although I think of our childhood visits to out-of-state relatives with the simple fondness of youth, I know there were many difficult things she wanted to leave behind, and thereby decide what her own family life would look like. This determination sometimes showed as streaks of a 50s home-maker in a working power-mom of the 80s/90s. Maybe someday I'll ask if there's more to the story (for her) than a clipping.

At least in this one regard, her mission was a success. She had built for us - dad included, but especially thinking of my little sister - an unquestionable family tradition.

I think of this especially in when I went away for college. In my general recollection, it was another city but close enough to always come home for the holidays. However, spring break no longer always aligned with Easter, so perhaps I missed one? What I do remember is that my sister came to visit me one year, and we both had the same thought - we must make Easter muffins together!

Many years later, during the pandemic, pretty sure I did make them for myself once. It was a weird time, and I don't have photo evidence, but I'd like to think it was probably that first Easter in lockdown... when we couldn't go anywhere except a Zoom call. Whenever it was, I was so proud of making it happen! I remember trying to recreate the magic again, and much like today, there was always a missing ingredient. Even when I tried with more intention, the pesky milk had spoiled or the apple unexpectedly rotted in the center despite looking fine at a glance. Somehow, life gets too crazy keep it all aligned, despite being a more manageable recipe than many others (can be done within a day or less, unlike grandma's nut horn cookies that first crossed my mind when contemplating recipes - those must be stuck in the fridge overnight).

Trying to make them year-round, it occurred to me that conceptually they should be a much better fit for the fall season, with the apple and cinnamon elements, but somehow I can never see them that way. They are lighter than pie, with gaps of air, and those are filled with the freshness of spring sunshine. No matter what time of year I bake them, in my mind they will always be recreating the special feeling of an Easter treat shared among our family then and several breakfasts after. So favored that no matter how many you make, there are never quite enough to be filled.

May I have just one more?

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A recipe is required. Who would I ask for the recipe now? My mom is the keeper of these things, but rather than troubling her with an ask, my sister is the type of person to keep it handy and be thrilled that I'm honoring it. But then when I searched my emails, I found it was already sent by my mom long ago, from exactly the time my sister must have been visiting me in college...

Sun, Apr 1, 2007, 7:30 PM

Hi Honey,

Here is the recipe:

1 cup chopped apples (thinly sliced).

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg, well beaten

2/3 cup milk

1/4 cup butter

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

topping:

4 tbsp. melted butter

2tbsp. sugat

1 tsp. cinnamon

In large blowl mix together apples and 1/4 cup sugar. Blend in egg. Add milk and butter and mix together lightly. Sift in dry ingredients: flour, salt, cinnamon, sugar and baking powder. Mix together well. Spoon into greased or paper-lined (double) muffins tins. In separate bowl mix together topping. Add topping to each muffin. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Serves 12.

Love,

Mom