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 were delicious! I bought whole wheat flour for this which I typically don’t keep, Can I use it for other muffin or cake recipes (I’m specifically thinking of your strawberry muffins and cake) or should I save for when the recipe calls specifically for whole wheat flour?
Hi Sara, You have to be careful with whole wheat flour, as it can make baked goods very dry. I’d start by replacing just a 1/4 of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour in other recipes and see how you like the results.
Looking forward to trying this recipe! If I only use cinnamon rather than the nutmeg and cloves, how much do I add?
Hi Meghan, If you want to use all cinnamon, I’d just replace the nutmeg and cloves with equal amounts of cinnamon. Hope you enjoy!
Could I bake this as a loaf instead of muffins? If so, how should I adjust the temp/timing?
Hi Sarah, Sure that will work – bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, approximately 45 – 50 minutes. Enjoy!
I don’t have whole wheat flour. May I substitute it with all-purpose flour? Thanks.
Yep – hope you enjoy!
Very delicious muffins. Thanks for the recipe.
We had an unexpected early morning meeting happening at our house, so I wanted to make some apple and cinnamon muffins to go with coffee. Whose recipe could I trust when I hadn’t made it before? Jenn’s, of course! They turned out perfectly and were gobbled up. Thanks, Jenn, for such great and reliable recipes. I was worried they might stick in the pan, so I hedged my bets and put half in cupcake cases, but I needn’t have worried, they slipped out of the pan perfectly.
Hi There, I love your site and I have tried many of your recipes and they all come out great, you have very good instructions. I just made the apple spice muffins and i used 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup organic cane sugar and I sprinkled a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon on top. I got 18 muffins and baked them for 22 minutes and they are so delicious. Thanks so much. Hope you keep on posting recipes because I can’t wait to try more of them,
Delicious way to use up apples! I had some honeycrisp apples leftover and this recipe was absolutely perfect – they’re moist, spiced, with a delicious crispy layer of brown sugar on top. I have already been requested to make these again. I only had Greek yogurt, so I just used half the amount of Greek yogurt and thinned it with some milk until I reached the consistency of regular yogurt.
Are there “baking apples” that you prefer to use more over others? When baking, is there a mix (sweet and tart) that you prefer to use together?
Thanks!
Hi Patty, Any of these would be great choices: Fuji, Granny Smith, Jonagolds, Jonathans, Golden Delicious, Gala, or Honey Crisp (and it’s perfectly fine to use a combination of sweeter ones like Fujis and Granny Smiths. Hope you enjoy the muffins!
Just baked these muffins of yours for an Autumn Party….they turned out perfect and beautiful!
What is the best way to freeze these, for a couple of days?
Glad they turned out nicely! They can be frozen in an airtight container or sealable plastic bag. Thaw for 3 – 4 hours on the countertop before serving. To reheat, wrap individual muffins in aluminum foil and place in a preheated {350°F|175°C} oven until warm.
These muffins are fabulous! Moist, flavorful, not too sweet, and perfectly spiced. Easy and quick to put together as well. I didn’t have yogurt on hand when I wanted to make these, so I used an equivalent amount of sour cream. This recipe is a keeper!