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!
Recipe Overview
Why you’ll love it: These apple cinnamon muffins are quick and easy to make and perfect for a light breakfast or snack.
How long it takes: 30 minutes.
Equipment you’ll need: Muffin tin, mixing bowl, grater.
Servings: 12 muffins.
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!).
The best apples for baking are tart, firm apples, like Granny Smith or Honeycrisp. Avoid softer, sweet apple varieties such as MacIntosh apples.
The key to fluffy muffins with high domes is high heat. We bake these muffins at 400ºF, which encourages the muffins to rise quickly.
Make sure that you’re correctly measuring dry ingredients like flour and leavening (see the tips above). Also, don’t overmix the batter! Too much mixing can lead to dense, tough muffins.
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.
- 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
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!
Apple Cinnamon Muffins
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
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did You Make This?Share a comment and rating below! I love hearing what you think!
I followed the recipe but they came out stuck to the muffin liners :(
Oh no! Sorry to hear that. Were they cooled completely?
delicious :)
Thanks, Leah! Glad you liked them!
We are always looking for some healthy snack options. Your recipe was right on time! There were a few changes that were made based on ingredients at the house. I used coconut oil, almond milk and brown sugar. They came out great and tasted delicious. Thank you!
SO happy to hear you liked these! :) Thank you very much for taking the time to come back and leave a comment!
oh, yum!
Congratulations! Great achievement.
Thank you for your continued support Denise!!
Thanks Denise!
I have a question. Are you able to substitute almond milk instead of regular milk?
I haven’t tested them that way (nut allergy family), but I think that should work just fine!
Sounds like a winner, Rachel. Love these healthy recipes and I’ll forego the caramel frosting which would be delicious on top of these! (Maybe for a tea party!)
I like the way you’re thinking! Caramel frosting sounds so delicious!
This recipe was a disaster, fallowed the instructions to a “T” and the center never fully cooked. I even tried the recipe twice and both times were a great failure…. Will not recommend…
Sorry to hear that! It may be an issue with oven temperature. I’ve made these frequently and they always turn out great!
Perhaps it has to do with high elevation?
This is great! Thanks so much for posting this. I tried the recipe and I really liked your applesauce idea, sadly we had no appelsauce in the house. Oh well. The cinnamon sugar on top really added a nice touch!
Wow, my very first posted recipe! Glad you liked it!
I almost always add whole wheat flour to muffins and sometimes cookies, half white and half wheat. It adds to the nutrition and is tasty in a whole grain way. Mom