Apple Cinnamon Muffins Recipe
This Apple Cinnamon Muffins Recipe is everything you dream of on a cozy day-soft, warmly spiced, and filled with fresh apple pieces in every bite. They're the perfect way to bring fall-fresh goodness to your kitchen any day of the week.
🔍 Recipe At-A-Glance: Apple Cinnamon Muffins Recipe
- 🕰️ Prep Time: 5 minutes
- ⏰ Cook Time: 22 minutes
- 🍁 Flavor Profile: Delightful apples and cinnamon in the shape of a bakery case-worthy muffin.
- 🥄 Good For: Breakfasts after a trip to the apple orchard, afternoon snacks, and fall brunches.
- 🧡 Difficulty: Easy as can be.
"I made these and they are really delicious!"
- MARYA ON PINTEREST -
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🧡 Why You'll Love This Recipe
Comforting and cozy, these apple cinnamon muffins are the perfect way to add some homemade goodness to your breakfast or to a packed school lunch! The smell of apples and cinnamon wafting through your kitchen as you bake these is absolutely delightful-and the delight continues as you take your first bite.
Here's why you'll love this recipe:
- Like a trip to the orchard: Packed with chunks of real apples and plenty of cinnamon, these muffins will take you right back to your trip to the orchard. Top them with a smear of homemade apple butter or apple jelly to up the orchard vibes even more.
- Easy as pie (muffins?): Can you mix ingredients together? Then congratulations, you can make these muffins! Once my kiddo was old enough to use the oven herself, this recipe was easy enough for her to make them herself!
- Tried and true: I took my base perfect muffins recipe through lots of rounds of testing to find the perfect recipe. My muffin recipes come out fluffy, light, and with bakery-worthy domed tops, every time...including this apple cinnamon muffin recipe. Trust that you'll end up with great muffins if you follow this recipe.
🍏 The Ingredients You Need
- Apples: If you like your muffins on the less-sweet side, then opt for a tart apple to balance out the sweetness of the granulated sugar and brown sugar. Granny Smith, Pink Lady, and Empire apples are great tart options. All of those also work great in my simple caramel apples recipe! If you're okay with a sweeter muffin, then Honeycrisp or Gala apples will also work. Honestly, it's a similar concept to my cinnamon apple overnight oats. Whatever apple you pick, just make sure it's a flavor you enjoy, and you'll be good!
Make sure to check the recipe card below for the full ingredients list, along with quantities and my expert tips and tricks.
🔁 Variations & Substitutions
- Make it vegan: To make these muffins plant-based, replace the blueberries in my easy vegan blueberry muffins recipe with chopped apples and cinnamon.
- Cinnamon muffins: Not feeling the apples? Make my cinnamon muffins recipe instead for more of a snickerdoodle vibe.
- Go gluten-free: Add the chopped apples and a bit extra cinnamon to my almond flour banana muffins for a gluten-free option (Note that this recipe is dairy-free but does contain eggs).
- Apple pie muffins: Replace the cinnamon with apple pie spice and drizzle the cooled muffins with caramel for a muffin take on my caramel apple pie recipe.
🥣 How to Make This Apple Cinnamon Muffins Recipe
Step 1: Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Step 2: Whisk together the melted butter and sugars, then add the rest of the wet ingredients. Don't take the shortcut of doing the dry and wet ingredients in one bowl-that's how you end up with dry, dense muffins, and nobody wants that!
Step 3: Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir just until there are no dry spots left, then stop! It's okay if there are still a few lumps...that's better than overmixing the batter!
Step 4: Fold in the apples and cinnamon. Again, you don't want to overmix, so keep this step short.
Step 5: Grease or line a muffin tin. Muffin batter is sticky, so be sure not to skip this step if you don't want to expend a bunch of elbow grease getting the pan clean later. Fill each muffin cup about ¾ full.
Step 6: Bake in the hot muffin for 5 minutes, then quickly reduce the temperature to 350°F. The two temperatures are important for giving you perfectly baked, super fluffy muffins. Bake for another 16-17 minutes. You'll know they are done when the muffins start to pull away from the tin and a toothpick in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
🙋🏻♀️ Apple Cinnamon Muffins Recipe FAQs
If your muffins come out dense instead of fluffy, you probably overmixed the batter. Next time, mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately. When you combine them, stir until just combined. It's okay if there are still a few lumps-it will even out in the oven!
To get bakery-worthy muffins complete with domed tops, you need to do two things: Make sure the butter is completely melted before you add it to the batter, and make the temperature change. Start baking the muffins at 400°F, and then drop the temperature to 350°F after a few minutes. This burst of high heat gives the muffins their springy, rounded tops.
Store muffins at room temperature. The muffins will stay fresh for three days in an airtight container with a paper towel or clean tea towel. For longer-term storage, you can freeze the muffins in a single layer on a baking sheet until frozen solid. Transfer to a freezer bag or container and freeze for up to three months.
👩🏻🍳 My Expert Tips & Tricks
- Adjust the temperature: The high temperature at the beginning gives the muffins volume and height, while the lower temperature for the rest of the bake cooks them all the way through.
- Use dried apples: If you have dried apple slices, rehydrate them in boiling water for a few minutes, then chop and add to the batter in place of the fresh.
- Melt the butter: The butter needs to be completely melted for the fluffiest muffins with the highest tops.
- Save yourself from dishes: Muffin batter can be sticky as all get-out. Either grease the pan well or use paper liners in the tin to save yourself from lots of scrubbing.
- Don't cool in the tin: Let the muffins cool for about 5 minutes in the tin, and then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling. It may seem silly, but this is how you avoid overcooked and dry muffins!
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📖 Recipe
Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups finely chopped apples
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, then set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter and sugars.
- Whisk the milk, eggs, and vanilla extract into the butter mixture until well combined.
- Fold in the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. It's okay if there are still a few lumps.
- Fold in the apples and cinnamon. Avoid overmixing.
- Line a 12-count muffin tin with paper liners or grease heavily. Fill each muffin cup ¾ full.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 350°F. Bake for 16-17 more minutes until the centers are completely set, verified with a toothpick inserted in the center.
- Allow the muffins to cool for five minutes in the pan, then move to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Notes
- Make sure your butter is fully melted before adding it to the batter. This step, plus the high temperature at the start, gives the muffins that perfect domed top!
- Only allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling-that's how you dodge dry muffins.
- Make sure not to overmix the batter, or you will end up with dry, dense muffins. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until they are just combined. It's okay if there are a few lumps left!
One of these muffins + a homemade PSL is the perfect fall afternoon snack. Plus it gives me another chance to use up some of the bushel of apples we are working our way through!