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Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I recently stopped in at a local cafe and ordered a tasty looking apple muffin to go with a cup of coffee. That muffin only had about two pieces of apple in the entire thing, and was pretty disappointing overall. Naturally, this set me on a mission to make a simple, tasty apple muffin.

Apple and cinnamon is always a great pairing, so I started with that as the flavor base for this muffin. There is cinnamon in the muffin batter,  and the muffins are also topped with a cinnamon sugar mixture. While I do like a streusel topping for apple muffins as well, adding a simple sugar topping saves a lot of work and still gives them a nice little crunch and finishing flavor. I used plenty of diced apples in the batter, but these are high-rising muffins and there is enough batter around the apples that you won’t mistake these muffins for a miniature apple crisp or crumble.

The muffins are moist and tender – thanks in large part to the apples, but also because they include oil in addition to butter. Oil not only mixes in to a quick bread easily, but it helps the muffin to retain moisture, even if you end up storing these for a day or two before finishing the batch. The melted butter adds a lot of flavor that oil alone wouldn’t provide. These mix up quickly and are much more satisfying than the apple-less “apple” muffins from the coffee shop, if I do say so myself!

 Apple Cinnamon Muffins, top view

Apple Cinnamon Muffins
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups diced apple

3 tbsp coarse sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and spices.
In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar and egg. Whisk in melted butter, vegetable oil and vanilla. Working in two or three additions, alternately stir in flour mixture and buttermilk, ending with an addition of flour and mixing only until no streaks of flour remain visible in the batter. Stir in diced apple.
Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups filling each to the top, or slightly over.
In a small bowl, stir together coarse sugar and additional 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon. Sprinkle generously over muffins.
Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.
Cool muffins on a wire rack.

Makes 12.

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65 Comments
  • Fanne
    January 27, 2012

    I just made these.. wow they’re the BEST I’ve ever tasted!

  • Bonnie
    April 14, 2012

    Thank you so much for sharing your recipe. Loved them! To jm, that is exactly what I did. I used 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup all purpose. They were perfect! Only other difference was I grated my apple rather than chop. So yummy! This is definitely going in my recipe box!

  • Ean
    June 5, 2012

    If I do not have buttermilk can use milk ?

  • Edie
    June 30, 2012

    Really yummy muffins, recipe was perfect. The only thing I found was that they took much longer than 18 minutes to cook, in a 180 degree celcius oven they took 40 minutes.

  • Emma
    July 18, 2012

    AMAZING!! They are super yum and easy to make!

    I made my butter milk. 1cup of milk and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar, leave it to sit for 5mins and there you go, butter milk 🙂

    Thanks for my new favourite recipe 🙂

  • Julie
    September 27, 2012

    I found these on Pinterest which led me to your blog, which is terrific, by the way. I made these muffins today; I had everything in the pantry for them except muffin liners, and was too lazy to go to the store for just one item, so I made them into mini muffins. Made no changes except for cooking temp and time. I baked at 350 F for 12 minutes and they turned out the perfect texture. As for the blandness people are talking about, I noticed it a tiny bit when I tasted one straight out of the oven, but I found that if you let them rest and cool for about half an hour, the flavor really comes out. Thanks for the recipe! I hope to blog them on my site soon. 🙂

  • siouxsie
    October 17, 2012

    Nice!
    I tweaked slightly and used apple cider instead of buttermilk and 1/3 of the required flour with oat bran. I have just tasted a warm one right out of the oven and YUMMMM! Also I used extra large eggs and beat them so they are nice and frothy before adding, making the muffins light, not too dense.
    Thanks.

  • Ruth
    March 19, 2013

    wow….best muffins ever!!

  • shelly
    May 6, 2013

    I make these often and thought i should post a comment. Absolutely delicious..moist…flavourful!! Thank you so much for sharing the recipe!

  • NS
    August 7, 2013

    Hi. Can I use white sugar instead of brown? Will the taste differ?

  • Lesley
    October 18, 2013

    Wow, these are amazing, will definitely be saving this recipie, yum!

  • Erica
    May 1, 2014

    Hi Nicole
    I made these delicious muffins this morning. I cut back the sugar to 1/2 cup and followed “Big Daddy’s” suggestion of sprinkling the cut apples with cinnamon and a bit of sugar. I also added the cut apple to the top of the muffins.

    I easily made 12 large muffins. Thank you for a great recipe.

    Cheers

    Erica

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