Copycat Panera Cobblestone Muffin Food

PANERA APPLE CINNAMON RAISIN MUFFINS

Steps:

• Put the water, butter, sugar, egg, and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer. Stir briefly with a whisk. Add the flour, and then add the yeast on top. Mix on low speed with the dough hook until a shaggy dough forms, about 1 minute. Increase speed to medium and knead for 10 minutes. The dough will be soft, very shiny, and supple. It will also be very soft. Don't worry about that--we want a soft dough. Leave the dough in the mixer bowl, and scrape it into a ball, spray with pan spray, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 1 1⁄2 hours.
• Using a whisk or a hand mixer, mix all the ingredients except the raisins together until smooth. Reserve the raisins for assembly.
• Using a chef knife, or a mini-prep, chop or pulse the apples until the pieces are about the size of small peas. You don't want it completely smooth like applesauce. Think more like salsa. Stir in the salt and cinnamon chips, if using. If not using cinnamon chips, stir in the ground cinnamon and set aside.
• Using 2 forks, a pastry blender, or your fingers, mix all the streusel ingredients together until sandy with little clumps of butter. Set aside.
• Sprinkle a bit of flour on top of the dough and then punch it down to press out the gases. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and flour the top of the dough lightly as well. Roll dough into a rough rectangle about 18" x 10". Spread the Cinnamon mixture evenly over the surface of the dough. Sprinkle on the raisins, if using. Starting from a long end, roll up the dough into a cylinder as if you were making cinnamon rolls. Pinch the seam to seal. Cut the dough into 9 equal pieces. Cut each of these pieces into 3 pieces for a total of 18 "cinnamon rolls."
• Line 2 jumbo muffin tins with jumbo muffin liners (you will only need to line 3 cavities in the second pan since this recipe makes 9 muffins). For each muffin, you'll be using 3 of the "cinnamon rolls." Cut the first in 4-5 pieces and put them in a lined muffin cavity. Top with a spoonful of apple filling. Repeat twice more with the second and third "cinnamon rolls." When finished, you'll have a muffin with 3 layers of cinnamon roll and 2 of spiced apple. You will be filling the muffin cups almost to the tops.
• Continue making muffins with the rest of your dough and apple filling. Evenly sprinkle on the streusel, dividing it evenly among the 9 muffins. Cover muffins and let rise in a warm place until puffy, about 45 minutes. While muffins are rising, place a rack in the center of your oven, and preheat to 350 F. Bake until golden brown and well risen. The internal temperature of the muffins should be about 195F, give or take 5 degrees. This will take about 30 minutes. If the muffins seem to be browning too quickly, loosely tent with foil. Let the muffins cool for 10 minutes and then remove muffins to a rack to cool completely. Once cool, use a fork to drizzle each muffin lightly with the glaze.
• Whisk the ingredients together until smooth. You can wait until the muffins are cooling after baking to do this part.

PANERA BREAD STYLE COBBLESTONE MUFFINS

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Grease 15 cupcake molds (one pan of a dozen molds and then three molds on another pan).
• In a pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the apples, brown sugar, salt, pumpkin pie spice and lemon juice to the pan. Stir and cook until golden and soft (7-10 minutes).
• In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and eggs with an electric mixer on medium speed.
• Spoon a small amount of dough batter into the bottom of each cupcake mold. Reserve about half the batter.
• Divide apple filling evenly between all molds to create a distinct apple layer. Top off with remaining dough batter, making sure to fill in the sides so that the muffin holds together.
• Crumble brown sugar, flour, and butter together with fingers to make the streusel. Sprinkle on top of muffins.
• Bake 50 minutes. Cool in pan for at least 15 minutes.