Apple Muffins
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These apple muffins are packed with fresh apples and warm spices, with a tender crumb and crunchy brown sugar tops.
I’ve made a lot of apple muffin recipes the years, but I especially love these because they strike a nice balance between wholesome and indulgent. The recipe, adapted from King Arthur Baking, uses a combination of whole wheat and all-purpose flour, which gives the muffins a little more substance without making them heavy. Yogurt keeps them moist, while a generous amount of chopped apple ensures you get fruit in every bite.
The finishing touch is a sprinkle of brown sugar before baking, which bakes up into a deliciously crunchy crust on top. They’re especially good warm from the oven, but they stay moist for days, making them great for breakfast or an afternoon snack.
“A perfect muffin recipe! The house smelled marvelous, too!”
What You’ll Need To Make Apple Muffins
- Butter & Egg: The butter adds richness and helps keep the crumb tender, while the egg provides structure.
- Granulated & Brown Sugar: Sweeten the muffins and help keep them moist. Brown sugar is also sprinkled over the tops before baking to create a sweet, crunchy crust.
- Plain Yogurt: Keeps the muffins moist and tender and works with the baking soda to help them rise. Plain low-fat or Greek yogurt both work well.
- Whole Wheat & All-Purpose Flour: The combination gives the muffins some of the nutty flavor and substance of whole wheat while keeping them tender. Using all whole wheat flour can make them dry, but white whole wheat flour can be used in place of both flours.
- Baking Powder & Baking Soda: Work together to give the muffins lift.
- Cinnamon, Nutmeg & Cloves: Cinnamon leads the way, with nutmeg and cloves adding extra warmth and depth.
- Apples: Use firm apples that hold their shape when baked, such as Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Gala, Jonagold, Jonathan, or Golden Delicious. The chopped apples add moisture and ensure you get pieces of fruit throughout the muffins.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
How To Make Apple Muffins
Mix the wet ingredients: Beat the butter and granulated sugar until noticeably lighter in color and fluffy, scraping down the bowl as needed. Beat in the egg until well combined, then add the yogurt. The mixture may look a little curdled or lumpy after the yogurt goes in; that’s normal.
Add the dry ingredients: Add the flours, leaveners, salt, and spices, and mix just until no streaks of flour remain. The batter will be very thick and scoopable.
Fold in the apples: Gently fold in the chopped apples until evenly distributed. It may look like a lot of apples at first, but they’ll work their way into the thick batter. Stop folding once the fruit is evenly dispersed.
Fill the muffin cups: Divide the batter among the muffin cups. They should be quite full, with the thick batter mounded slightly above the rims. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the tops.
Bake: Bake until the muffins are well risen and golden brown, with slightly domed tops. A tester inserted into the center should come out clean or with a few moist crumbs, but no wet batter. Let the muffins cool briefly in the pan before transferring them to a rack.
If you love baking with apples, be sure to try my apple bread or apple cake. The bread has a sweet cinnamon ribbon running through it, while the cake is buttery, tender, and packed with fresh apples.
More Muffin Recipes You May Like
Spiced Apple Muffins
Ingredients
- ½ cup (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (packed) dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup plain low-fat yogurt or Greek yogurt
- 1 cup whole wheat flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled off
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled off
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 cups peeled cored, and finely chopped baking apples (you'll need 2 large apples)
For Topping
- 6 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Grease a 12-cup muffin pan with butter or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- Add the egg and mix well, stopping to scrape the bowl if necessary.
- Beat in the yogurt. The batter will look a little curdled—that's okay.
- Add the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Beat on low speed until just combined. The batter will be very thick.
- Add the chopped apples and mix until just combined. Do not over-mix.
- Use an ice-cream scooper or large spoon to divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups. The cups should be full. Sprinkle the 6 tablespoons of brown sugar evenly over top.
- Bake the muffins for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
- Remove the muffins from the oven, cool them for 5 minutes in the pan, then turn them out onto a rack to finish cooling completely.
Notes
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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These muffins are wonderful and they freeze well. Made them several times. Last time I reduced sugar to 80g and added 70g roasted ground nuts for better nutritive balance and it turned amazing.
These muffins are delicious, but they are even better by day #3! Next time I will coarsely grate the apples so they are consistent in size and bake evenly.
Best apple muffin recipe ever!! My husband and I are hooked on them, so I bake them every Sunday, bag and freeze them once they cool off, so we can enjoy them during the week. Thank you!
Hi Jenn,
Can this be made into a cake? If so what adjustments are necessary for the temperature and /or bake time? Thank you – your recipes are wonderful!
Hi Ana, If you want an apple cake, I’d suggest using this recipe. It’s slightly different than this but delicious!
Hi Jenn,
I’ve made your French Apple Cake several times – and it’s AWESOME. The spiced apple muffins were a really big hit this week. Thank you yet again for your amazing recipes!
My family loves these muffins. I bake them when I want something sweet but also “healthy.” I ran out of whole wheat flour so I made oat flour (pulverized old-fashioned oats in a food processor) and the recipe still turned out great. I usually use half the brown sugar topping and the muffins are still tasty. Thanks Jenn!
Why not Greek style yogurt? That’s all we usually have so I’d rather not have to buy regular yogurt that no one will eat.
Hi Nancy, You can use Greek yogurt here but you’ll need to thin it out with a little bit of milk. Hope you enjoy!
Can you use buttermilk instead of regular yogurt? or is it better to use sour cream?
Hi Sharon, I’d probably go with the sour cream, you can use buttermilk also but it may slightly change the texture of the muffins. Hope you enjoy!
I prefer buttermilk over yogurt. Work’s great. Ratio is 1:1. Instead of 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon powder… Go one and a half teaspoon s baking soda, half teaspoon baking powder.
I was missing fall flavors when I made this over the summer and I was not disappointed with this recipe. It turned out amazing and the muffins did not last long in our house.
The muffins were absolutely delicious! The whole family enjoyed them. I will be making them again soon.
Run don’t walk to your kitchen to make these muffins! Tick all the boxes…easy to prepare, spices are totally delicious, and the crunchy top puts them over the top. Keeping this one in my “Jen File” (which is getting really full). Can’t wait for your next cookbook.
Family friendly and really yummy. My house is filled with the most amazing scent right now. Great recipe. I used Greek yogurt thinned out because that is what I had and over mixed the batter and they were still great! . I will try them next time with regular yogurt.
Easy and delicious!