Lombardo Lagniappe: Applesauce Muffins with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

That title is quite a mouthful, and so were the muffins :) Hehe. I'm sorry, that was super corny. Anyway, I feel like it's been forever since I posted something, but it certainly isn't for lack of things to write about. I spent this last weekend in New Orleans for Amanda Schram's bachelorette party, and also I got to visit with my uncle Harold and cousin Michael. It was so great to see everyone, and I can't wait to show some pictures. Once I get a few more pics from some of the other bridesmaids, I'll write a post about my trip.

For now, I'll show you the treat I made for the St. Pat's potluck at work last Friday. I realize that St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, but these muffins are good anytime, and the icing could be put on regular cupcakes all year round! The muffin recipe is one that I was very familiar with from my childhood. Mom used to make these all the time and the original recipe is from the American Heart Association cookbook so they're relatively healthy. The icing uses the new white chocolate cream cheese that Philadelphia came out with. I could have eaten that cream cheese by the spoonful! Sooooo good. I wanted the icing to be rainbow swirl so that the muffins would look sort of like pots of gold at the end of the rainbow :) I didn't take pictures of how I made it rainbow swirl, but I'll try my best to explain it. First of all, here's the muffin recipe.

Applesauce Muffins (From the American Heart Association Cookbook
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. vegetable or canola oil
1 c. applesauce
1 t. baking soda
1 t. cinnamon
3/4 c. brown sugar

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add oil and applesauce and stir to combine. Divide batter between 12 lined muffin cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when poked into a muffin. This recipe is really easy to double. Plus there are no raw eggs, so don't feel bad about eating the batter by the spoonful :)

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8 oz. container of Philadelphia white chocolate cream cheese
1/2 c. Crisco shortening
6 c. powdered sugar
1-2 T milk

You need this cream cheese in your life.

Mix the cream cheese and shortening until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and enough milk to make it the consistency that you'd like. Place it in an airtight container until ready to use. This made barely enough to frost 24 muffins.

To frost the muffins I placed a Wilton 1M tip in a pastry bag and then placed the bag into a large cup and folded it over the edges to keep it open. Then I used toothpicks and gel food coloring to make a stripe of each rainbow color around the inside of the bag. I tried to make the stripes kind of heavy so that the color wouldn't fade too quickly. Then I scooped the icing into the pastry bag, twisted the top and squeezed the icing down till it started coming out with the rainbow stripes. Next I just piped swirls onto the muffins. One thing I learned while doing this was to make sure and try and get all the icing you'll need into the bag on the first go because if you have to open it back up and add more icing, it will be all smooshed together and the colors won't come out as a rainbow the next time. You could do this with any other holiday colors, or maybe school colors. People at work thought they were store bought :) Here are a few more pictures of the final product!