Easter Muffins

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 100 g whole‑grain croutons (10 slices)
• 1 Organic lemon
• 300 g apples (2 apples)
• 200 g ground hazelnut kernels
• 150 g brown sugar
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 50 g honey‑marzipan base
• 0.5 tsp cocoa powder
• 250 g buttermilk quark (or low‑fat quark)
• 20 g powdered sugar (2 tbsp)
• 50 g chopped pistachios

Instructions

1. 1.

   Separate the eggs; place whites in a tall bowl and yolks in a large mixing bowl. Whip the whites with a hand mixer until stiff peaks form, then set aside.

2. 2.

   Grind the crouton slices into fine crumbs using a food processor. Wash the lemon, dry‑rub it, grate the zest finely, halve the lemon and squeeze out the juice.

3. 3.

   Wash the apples, dry‑rub them, and coarsely grate with the skin on. Add the apple shreds to the yolks along with the crouton crumbs, hazelnuts, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and 2 Tbsp lemon juice.

4. 4.

   Mix everything together using a hand mixer’s beaters. Fold in the whipped egg whites with a rubber spatula.

5. 5.

   Place 12 paper cups into the depressions of a muffin tin with 12 cavities. Spoon the batter into each cup and smooth the tops with the back of a spoon.

6. 6.

   Bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C (gas: level 2–3, fan‑oven: 160 °C) for about 25 minutes, checking doneness with a wooden stick. Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack in about 35 minutes.

7. 7.

   Meanwhile, knead the marzipan base with cocoa powder and roll it out to roughly 3 mm thickness using a rolling pin. Cut out little bunny shapes with a small cutter.

8. 8.

   Whisk the quark with powdered sugar and 1–2 Tbsp lemon juice until creamy. Spread about 1 Tbsp of this cream on each cooled muffin, sprinkle pistachios on top, garnish with marzipan bunnies, and serve as Easter muffins.