Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Get ready to “fall” in love with these soft and moist apple cinnamon muffins made from whole wheat flour, filled with fresh apple chunks and warm fall spice!

 

Homemade Apple Cinnamon Muffins

My kids are muffin monsters. They love muffins, almost any kind, but especially these apple cinnamon muffins. And while Grandma is the undisputed muffin queen, these soft homemade apple muffins definitely rise to the occasion. Literally. They’re so fluffy! This easy muffin recipe is filled with sweet bites of fresh apple and warm cinnamon spice, with flavors reminiscent of an apple spice cake. They’re made ultra-tender with whole wheat and a touch of applesauce, perfect for snacking on this fall.

Why You’ll Love This Apple Muffin Recipe

• Easy to make. With pantry ingredients like flour, baking powder, a dash of salt, and spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, these muffins couldn’t be easier to stir up.
• Wholesome. These homemade apple muffins are full of flavor and totally satisfying, complete with an extra boost of nutrition thanks to hearty whole wheat flour.
• Bursting with apples. These soft apple cinnamon muffins are sweetened with applesauce and loaded up with freshly shredded apples for flavor and moisture. And if you love biting into juicy bits of apples, feel free to dice them instead!

Ingredients You’ll Need

With just a handful of pantry ingredients, you can have a batch of cozy apple cinnamon muffins in the oven ASAP. Remember to scroll to the recipe card below the post for the full ingredients list, amounts, and recipe instructions.

• Milk
• Applesauce – Those single-serving cups of unsweetened applesauce you’ll find in stores are exactly one half-cup, which works perfectly in this recipe. You can also try homemade applesauce.
• Egg
• Oil – Canola oil, vegetable oil, or another neutral-flavored oil.
• Flour – I make these muffins with whole wheat flour, but you can use all-purpose flour if that’s what you have on hand.
• Sugar
• Baking Powder and Salt
• Spices – Ground cinnamon and nutmeg, or you can use apple pie spice.
• Apples – I recommend a good baking apple, like Granny Smith. The apples can be peeled or unpeeled.

How to Make Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I use my easy one-bowl method to make these fluffy apple muffins. It works like a charm and cuts down on clean-up:

• Combine the ingredients. Stir together the wet ingredients in a large bowl and measure the dry ingredients, placing them right on top.
• Stir. Lightly stir the dry ingredients together with your finger (or a dry spoon) and then gently mix them into the wet batter underneath. Don’t over-mix, the ingredients should be just combined. 
• Bake. Fill your muffin cups and bake these muffins at 400ºF for 20 minutes. Nothing to it! 

Tips for Success

Homemade muffins are surprisingly simple to make. And with a few quick tips, you’ll be buttering up these moist apple muffins in no time:

• Measure the ingredients correctly. Too much flour or too much baking soda can cause the muffins to turn out overly dense, or deflated. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, use the spoon-and-level method, and spoon the flour from the bag into your measuring cup before leveling it off with a knife.
• Save time and leave the apples unpeeled. When the apples are shredded, the peels are barely noticeable. If you dice your apples instead of shredding them, you might want to peel them (but I usually don’t!).

FAQs

Make These Apple Muffins Your Own

If you’d like to change things up when it comes to flavors and add-ins for these apple cinnamon muffins, I have a few ideas for you:

• Add-ins. Add a half cup of chopped toasted walnuts, raisins, or chocolate chips.
• Don’t care for whole wheat? Use regular all-purpose flour instead of all or part of the whole wheat flour. My family is accustomed to the heartier flavor and texture of whole wheat but if you’re welcome to substitute all-purpose flour.
• Add a topping. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar or coarse sugar on the tops of the muffins before baking. A streusel topping, like the one in these banana streusel muffins, is super good, too. Another idea: brush the tops of the baked muffins with cinnamon flavored simple syrup.
• Dice the apples instead of shredding them. If you enjoy biting into juicy bits of apple, finely dice the apples. These apple cider muffins feature diced apples.
• Looking for more easy apple muffin recipes? You might also like my apple bran muffins or these apple cider muffins.

How to Store

• To Store. Keep the baked and cooled apple muffins stored airtight at room temperature for up to 3-4 days.
• Freezer. Make a big batch of muffins and freeze them in individual bags for up to 3 months, ready to put into lunch boxes. They’ll thaw out by lunchtime. Or, warm the frozen muffins in the microwave for a quick snack.

More Muffin Recipes

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Banana Bread Muffins

Morning Glory Muffins

Blueberry Bran Muffins

A bit of nostalgia…

We updated this recipe and post with more valuable information (and pictures!) in January 2020. However, this recipe was my very first post way back in February 2011, shortly after my first child was born. It was called “Rachel’s Recipe Reviews” back then! What started as a creative outlet (“hobby”)  to fill long hours at home with a newborn turned into a career that I absolutely fell in love with. Because I’m too sentimental to delete those very first words that I typed, I’ll include this first paragraph written as a new food blogger:

“One of my favorite things to do is cook and bake. Now that I am a stay at home mom, I have more time to invest into this love of mine. I have tons of great cookbooks, many of which I didn’t use often. It wasn’t because they were not good cookbooks, but more because I had a few go-to recipes that I didn’t stray far from. That is obviously boring and not fun at all! It is my goal to draw from these cookbooks to create some really fantastic recipes. I love to talk with fellow “foodies” about what I have made and what I did to make it better (to mine and my husband’s palates). I’m hoping that my mother won’t be the only one that will read and benefit from this blog. I am also hoping that I can stick with it. Enough talk, here is my first recipe!”

Now, with millions of readers each month, it’s definitely more than just a hobby. I’m so glad I wrote that first post!

Did you make this? Be sure to leave a review below and tag me @rachelcooksblog on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest!

Recipe

Get the Recipe: Apple Cinnamon Muffins

4.48 from 17 votes

Prep Time: 10 minutes mins

Cook Time: 20 minutes mins

Total Time: 30 minutes mins

12 muffins

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Soft and moist apple cinnamon muffins made from whole wheat flour, filled with fresh apple chunks and warm fall spice. They're perfect as a light breakfast or an easy snack!

Ingredients

• ▢ ¾ cup milk
• ▢ ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
• ▢ 1 large egg
• ▢ 2 tablespoons canola oil
• ▢ 2 cups whole wheat flour
• ▢ ½ cup sugar
• ▢ 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt
• ▢ 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ▢ 1 cup (heaping) shredded Granny Smith apples, unpeeled (other varieties will work as well)

Instructions

• Heat oven to 400ºF. Prepare muffin tins by spraying with cooking spray or line with paper baking cups.
• In large bowl, stir milk, applesauce, egg and oil, with fork or wire whisk until well mixed. Fold in apples.
• Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy). Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. 
• If desired, sprinkle tops of muffins with cinnamon sugar or coarse sugar. 
• Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand about 5 minutes in pan, then remove from pan to wire rack; if baked in paper baking cups, immediately remove from pan to wire rack. Serve warm or room temperature.

Notes

• If preferred, all-purpose white flour can be substituted for all or part of the whole wheat flour.
• Any variety of apple would work well. If desired, apple can be finely diced instead of shredded.
• Most individual sized serving cups of applesauce contain a half cup.

Nutrition Information

Serving: 1muffin, Calories: 144kcal, Carbohydrates: 26g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 4g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 2g, Trans Fat: 0.02g, Cholesterol: 15mg, Sodium: 181mg, Potassium: 118mg, Fiber: 3g, Sugar: 11g, Vitamin A: 46IU, Vitamin C: 1mg, Calcium: 69mg, Iron: 1mg

This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.

© Author: Rachel Gurk

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