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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Hi Jen
I am wondering if you can make thus recipe with 2 cups of all purpose flour, rather than one cup each of all purpose and whole wheat.
Thanks in advance
Hi Karen, yes, you can make these with entirely all-purpose flour. Enjoy!
Hi Jen.. they were delicious!! Thanks again for another great foolproof recipe.
We’re having kind of a peach event in the area next week, and I’m wondering how this recipe would work with peaches. The brown sugar on top sounds great, but I think I’d like a more streusel-like topping. Ripe peaches aren’t as firm as apples, so maybe the batter would be more moist. Any suggestions? Thank you.
As you mentioned, I think the peaches will add too much moisture to the muffins. You could use my strawberry muffin recipe instead and add the topping from this recipe.
Very tasty 🙂 I a did deviate from the recipe a tad by adding a tsp(ish) of fresh grated ginger to the sugar topping and I added ground ginger to the batter.
I love the idea of ginger. I will try it with some chopped crystallized ginger with the sugar
topping.
Muffins were good, not very sweet. Diced the apples into very small pieces but they didn’t cook as much as I expected. Didn’t put as much brown sugar on top based on some of the comments. Wish I had put the indicated amount.
A perfect muffin recipe! The house smelled marvelous, too!
I’ll make these again at Christmas!
Tthank you Jenn:)
Kerrie
Is there anything I can do when making these if I can’t can’t eat diary.
Hi Sidney, you could try these with a non-dairy (stick) butter and a non-dairy yogurt alternative. I haven’t tried it this way, but I suspect it should work. Please LMK how the muffins turn out if you make them!
Hi Jenn,
Thank you for this recipe. These muffins are simply delicious! Last night I made your Morning Glory Muffins. Another wonderful muffin recipe! My question is .. how do you store muffins once they are completely cool? I’ve just read .. it’s a good idea to place a sheet of paper towel on the bottom of an airtight container (to absorb any moisture), then place the muffins on top in a single layer, then another sheet of paper towel on top of the muffins. I’ve always used an airtight container (no paper towel) or Ziplock freezer bag (no paper towel) and placed the container/freezer bag in the freezer to keep the muffins fresh, and take them out as needed. What do you do? Thanks so much!
Hi Gail, I store them exactly the same way as the first description above. Glad you like them!
Hello! What did I do wrong, when the muffins raised first (even over the rim) but then halfway through started to fall back in and ended up being very flat. I don’t think I over-stirred them, I was very careful with that, just few seconds, when the flower was incorporated. Thank you!
Hi Helene, that sounds strange. Did you make any ingredient substitutions or adjustments to the recipe? Did you put the muffins in when the oven was still preheating?
Thinking of making these today. Question- is cinnamon flavour intense? There is a full tbsp of cinnamon, wondering if anyone can provide feedback? thanks!
Hi Isabelle, It’s not overwhelming at all, but feel free to cut back a bit.
These muffins are great! I had a couple of Honeycrisp apples that weren’t the greatest so, as usual, I scoured Jenn’s website for recipes. They are fall in a muffin, as my husband said. Love the warm spices and I like the fact that this uses whole wheat flour which gives it a little more nutritional value. I will be freezing the rest and am looking forward to enjoying an apple muffin with a PSL this fall!