Gluten-Free Apple Cake Muffins

A tender and light apple cake muffin. Gluten and dairy free.

Apple Cake Inspired

Before we get to muffins, I have a game for you. Created spontaneously one night, after some dizzying Facebook scrolling (when did Facebook become one endless stream of bumper stickers?). Pardon my yawning.

I think I'll call this amusement... The Dating Game. Here's how it hatched over crudities and hummus.

"I wish I knew you in high school," I tell my husband. This is not news to him, by the way. It's a popular topic lately, now that I am in my second adolescence, eighteen years past mid-life.

I sketch for him a vivid narrative of study hall humiliations and spikes of burning shame, waving a carrot stick in his direction, just for emphasis. I search for words to depict how it feels when a snickering quarterback punches your clutch of school books with his fists, sending you to your knees in a crowded hallway to rescue the sprawl of English homework, algebra and biology books that emit the faint smell of ink and gum.

He sighs audibly. He hates to hear these stories.

"I would have played you my Tommy album," I say. "I would have cooked you brown rice and tamari. We would have talked about books. Siddhartha. On the Road. Women in Love."

He smiles and adds, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

We toast Hunter Thompson with our mineral water.

"You wouldn't have liked me in high school," he says.

This isn't the first time I have heard this. It always puzzles me. Though he tells me this with less conviction now that he's been married to me for seventeen and a half years. I picture him in Levi's and an un-tucked flannel shirt. Beefy, brainy, sarcastic.

"I was angry," he mentions.

"Me too," I say, "but on the inside. A classic geek. They called me Four-Eyes."

"That's original," he says, popping an olive.

"And Sandwich," I add.

He raises an eyebrow. "Sandwich?"

"Yeah," I sigh. "Because of my hair. Straight. Thin. Parted down the middle. Like this." I place the edges of my palms on either side of my face. "Sandwich."

"Bullies," he says, and shakes his head in disgust.

Suddenly I feel inspired.

"Let's date in high school! Let's watch the movies we loved. Share music. Talk about books."

He laughs but I can tell he is visualizing it.

"For our first date," I tell him, "let's see Easy Rider. It rocked my fifteen-year-old world. Peter Fonda. Captain America. It launched me into orbit."

I sit back, sip mineral water, and glance at him sideways. I conjure my best rendition of my fifteen-year-old self.

"Hey. Wanna see Easy Rider?" I ask.

"It's rated R," he tells me. "We'll have to sneak you in. Or get you a fake ID."


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