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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Another amazing recipe. When you posted in on Facebook I knew I had to make them. They are beautifully light and just spiced perfectly. Delicious with the apples but would also be excellent without them or with just nuts. Either way another winning recipe I will make over and over again.
Just made these twice. The first time, did the recipe exactly as is. The top had a very crisp shell but the muffins were raw in the middle. The second time, I used pears and only filled the muffin cups 3/4 the way. The result was similar. What are your suggestions?
Hi Christina, Because you’ve had a problem with these twice, and followed the recipe exactly (with the exception of the pears the second time around), I suspect it may be a problem with your oven. Check out the tips in this helpful article to test your oven’s accuracy.
I’ve made these muffins several times without a problem. Are you mistakenly using the convection setting on the oven? Otherwise, I agree it sounds like there is a problem with the oven.
Delicious! Used Fuji apples and, for more protein, used Greek yogurt diluted with a bit of milk. Reduced the brown sugar topping to about 3.5-4 Tbsp. I agree that the brown sugar topping probably isn’t needed, but it does add a pleasant touch of sweetness. After hesitating on the 1 TBSP cinnamon, I decided to trust Jenn on this…and am glad I did! Thanks for another keeper recipe.
Now that the blueberries are pretty much gone until next year I had to leave off blueberry muffins and find a seasonal substitute. These apple spice muffins are the perfect player! With myself and two sons a dozen never last long. Certainly not long enough to ponder storage methods. Once they are cool and knocked out of the pan, I just set them on a rack on the kitchen counter. They will disappear in a day or so. I have used Honey Crisp and Granny Smith apples. I think the Granny Smith lend themselves better to baking than the Honey Crisp. Honey Crisp are the best eating apple, hands down. But Granny Smith come out with more apple flavor and less mushy when baked.
Did you try using it with only white whole wheat flour? If you can’t use this for all the flour required, could you substitute the whole wheat with white whole wheat flour? Thanks, Jenn
Hi Jenn, I haven’t tried them this way, but I’d imagine that’d work. Hope you enjoy!
Simply Scrumptious. I like the fact that the recipe uses whole wheat flour. I have made the recipe several times. We like the muffins as written but I have made using vegan margarine and for children I usually leave off the brown sugar topping.
Great recipe. Perfect for Fall Apple season. This could also make a great individual dessert for guests paired with a vanilla caramel ice cream. I left the apple chunks about 1/4-1/2 inch sizes to get more Of the fruit notes. Thanks!
Jenn I just finished making this muffin recipe …. And Jenn the results are sheer perfection! I am sooooooo happy. I own the Bosch oven from hell and every dish I try to cook in there is a challenge. It’s always a joke when we entertain ,,, will we or won’t we serve an apple pie with Uncooked pastry? It is such a comfort to know I can follow your instructions and rest assured I will have a good product to serve my family and friends. Many thanks and keep your great dishes coming to our table.
I would like to make mini muffins using this recipe. Would I have to make any adjustments in the recipe?
Hi Cyndi, Mini muffins would work here, just make sure to chop the apples into small chunks. I’d bake them for 10-15 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
Hello,
I don’t have any wheat flour, so I’m going to substitue with graham flour! I will let you know how it goes, but this is a great recipe regardless!