Pumpkin-Apple Muffins with Streusel Topping

December. Christmas season in a pandemic. The tamale orders are lower — twenty-two this year, down from thirty. The pandemic has reduced everything: the orders, the gatherings, the number of people who will sit at tables on Christmas Eve. But twenty-two orders is still approximately eleven hundred tamales, and eleven hundred tamales is still a mission, and the mission is the thing that December requires, and I will execute the mission because Rosa executed the mission every year in a kitchen the size of a closet, and I will not fail a mission that Rosa never failed.

Sofia adjusted the production plan. She reduced the temp hiring (Yolanda only, no additional help) and increased the efficiency: longer production days, fewer waste, the lean manufacturing of pandemic Christmas. She is fifteen and she just used the concept of lean manufacturing to plan tamale production, and I asked her where she learned about lean manufacturing, and she said: "A podcast about Toyota," and I thought: a podcast about Toyota is teaching my daughter to make tamales more efficiently, and this is the world now, and the world is strange, and the strangeness is working.

Camila's chorus holiday concert was virtual — a Zoom performance streamed from the rehearsal space, with each child singing from a socially distanced position, masked, the sound captured by microphones and mixed by someone at a computer. It was not the Abraham Chavez Theatre. It was not last year's concert. But Camila sang, and her voice traveled through the internet to the screens of families in their living rooms, and the traveling is the thing — the voice travels, through the air, through the internet, through the phone, through the tamale, through every medium available, because the voice will find its audience, and the audience will find the voice, and the finding is the connection, and the connection is the concert, regardless of the venue.

I made champurrado for the bakery — the December tradition, the thick chocolate corn drink that the construction workers hold in cold hands and the abuelitas sip slowly and the children ask for with wide eyes. The champurrado is the same. The pandemic hasn't changed the champurrado. The champurrado is proof that some things are pandemic-proof, and the proof is in the cup, and the cup is in the hands, and the hands are cold, and the cold is the December, and the December is the season of the bakery's highest purpose: to warm.

The champurrado is proof that some things hold — that warmth finds its form and its people no matter the year. When I came back from a long production day smelling like masa and piloncillo, I wanted something that filled the bakery with that same kind of certainty: spiced, substantial, something Rosa would have recognized as purposeful. These pumpkin-apple muffins with streusel topping became our December morning anchor — the thing we set out before the construction workers arrived for their champurrado, the thing the children reached for with the same wide eyes. The mission is always to warm, and these do exactly that.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 22 min | Total Time: 42 min | Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

Streusel Topping:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup rolled oats
3 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
Muffins:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup neutral oil (vegetable or canola)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup peeled, finely diced apple (about 1 medium apple, such as Honeycrisp or Fuji)

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease well with butter or nonstick spray.
Make the streusel. In a small bowl, combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Add the cold butter pieces and use your fingertips to work the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse, clumpy crumbs. Set aside in the refrigerator while you prepare the batter.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves until evenly combined.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla extract until smooth and well combined.
Combine and fold. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined — do not overmix. Fold in the diced apple. The batter will be thick.
Fill the muffin cups. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Remove the streusel from the refrigerator and sprinkle generously over the top of each muffin, pressing lightly so it adheres.
Bake. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean and the streusel is golden. Rotate the pan halfway through baking for even browning.
Cool. Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pumpkin-Apple Muffins with Streusel Topping — The Bakery’s December Purpose