Smitten Kitchen's Apple & Honey Challah "Muffins"

My post on my personal Facebook page yesterday morning:

                "Why do I feel like I have completed some amazing feat by just getting my kids
                out the door in the morning? I'm spent."

It's funny how something so simple can resonate with so many.  I even got comments and likes from those friends I never hear from but know are lurking somewhere out there in the Facebook shadows.  As one friend put it, "You just summed up motherhood."  And now that I'm back at the beginning of the journey with our new baby girl I'm finding I'd forgotten just how much of a juggling act it can be.  Some days I feel like I am the whole circus combined into one exhausted act.  I can juggle, walk the high wire and tame the lions all in the same day.  Sometimes more than once!  Only I don't look nearly as good in a leotard as those Cirque du Soleil girls do (but oh, how I wish....).

I do have to admit, however, my juggling act isn't always the best (almost as sad as my post-baby body in the aforementioned leotard).  Sometimes those little balls just won't stay up in the air no matter how much I try.  A few fall before I can snatch them back up.  Lately one of those fallen balls is my kids' breakfast- especially on those rushed weekday mornings.  It's nearly impossible to get a healthy, warm breakfast on the table for my two bigs while simultaneously nursing or changing their baby sister who seems to always be hungry at the most inconvenient times.  So those poor boys are reduced to grabbing whatever they can pop in a toaster or pour in a bowl.  It's hard for me to watch. 

I don't have a solution for my juggling woes.  Just a few really awesome catches every now and again that make me feel like Barnum and Bailey might actually be calling me up sometime soon after all.  These sweet little "muffins" are one of them.  I took one of my favorite recipes and made it easy for my kiddos to grab in the mornings when I'm not around to help them out.  Challah is a beautiful bread enriched with eggs and honey and with the abundant apples in season right now folded right into the dough these little rolls are truly my idea of a perfect breakfast alongside a cup of cold milk.

I'm not going to give you a recipe this time around because I truly did nothing to alter the original recipe in it's brilliance.  So instead I will give you the link to Deb at Smitten Kitchen's recipe (so click here now!) and tell you that it makes 2 dozen "muffins" if you make the whole recipe.  Follow Deb's recipe until you get to the step for the braiding of the dough.  Instead of cutting the dough into 4, cut it into 24 equal pieces.  Place those pieces of dough into buttered muffin tins and continue on with the recipe as written.  I halved the recipe this time around and ended up with 12 of the most beautiful breakfast treats around.