Can I Make The Apple And Cinnamon Muffins With Ground Almonds?

Our answer

Nigella's Apple And Cinnamon Muffins (from KITCHEN) are a good way to use up wrinkled and wizened apples that may have been in the fridge or fruit bowl for too long. The diced apples add bursts of sweet fruit as you eat the muffins.

The recipe uses spelt flour for preference, but you can also use plain (all-purpose) flour. Unfortunately, we would not recommend completely replacing the flour with ground almonds (almond flour or almond meal) as the oils in the almonds will make the muffins greasy and heavy. We note that in the Comments section for the recipe, someone has said that they used a combination of half coconut flour and half plain flour and this may be the best option, however coconut flour actually absorbs a lot of liquid, so the muffins may be on the dry side. We suspect that you could replace one third to half of the flour with ground almonds, but they will not rise as much as in the original recipe. It is usually possible to bake a recipe for 12 muffins in a 23cm (9-inch) round cake pan, but for a large cake you should reduce the oven temperature to 180c/160c fan/350F and the baking time is likely to be 35-40 minutes. We would not recommend changing the type of flour in the recipe and the type of pan, as making multiple changes to a baking recipe in one go usually causes problems. Also please note that as we have not tried the muffins with either of these combinations of flours or in a round pan, we cannot guarantee the results.