These moist apple muffins are a breeze to make, using simple ingredients that deliver big on flavor! Loaded with fresh, juicy apples and warmly spiced with cinnamon, they’re the perfect treat for busy mornings or a cozy afternoon snack.
What Type of Apples to Use for Apple Muffins
Typically when it comes to baking anything with apple, you want to try and use a ‘baking apple’. Popular baking apple’s include Honeycrisp apples, Granny Smith, Jonagold, Braeburn, and Royal Gala apples.
Why baking apples? They’re typically firmer and hold their shape better when baked. This ensures that the apple slices or chunks in your muffins maintain some texture and don’t turn into mush. Softer apples like Red Delicious or Golden Delicious can become too soft and watery when baked, although they may be fine for this muffin recipe as they bake up pretty quickly 🙂
What You’ll Need to Make Apple Muffins
What I love about this recipe is that it’s simple to make (no electric mixer required) and uses ingredients you probably already have in your pantry!
Here is what you’ll need:
– All purpose flour (plain four in the UK).
– Baking powder (no baking soda in this recipe)
– Salt
– Ground Cinnamon
– Ground cloves & nutmeg (optional, but recommended! Adds a wonderful flavor, similar to my spiced apple cake and spice cake recipe).
– White granulated sugar (you can use brown sugar too as a substitute. For the topping, make sure you use coarse sugar though, as soft brown sugar won’t provide the same ‘crunch’).
– Eggs
– Unflavored vegetable oil (I use canola oil. I preferred vegetable oil over melted butter for this recipe as it made for moister muffins, that stayed moist for longer).
– Whole milk
– Vanilla
– Fresh red apples (any red baking apple will work).
Want more muffin recipes? You can find all my muffins recipes here, including my banana muffins that have a delicious crumb topping, chocolate muffin recipe and more!
How to Make Apple Muffins
You can find the full list of ingredients in the recipe card at the end of the blog post (for easy navigation, hit the ‘jump to recipe’ button at the top of the blog post). Here is just a quick visual breakdown of the recipe (recipe video is also provided in the recipe card below).
Preheat oven to 200℃ (390℉) conventional and line a 12-hole standard muffin tin with muffin liners. Set aside for now.
Topping: Combine granulated sugar and cinnamon and stir to combine. Set aside for now.
Muffin batter: Begin by peeling and dicing the apples (remember to remove the core).
In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Using a whisk, mix until well combined. Set aside.
In a large bowl add in sugar, eggs, oil, milk and vanilla. Using a whisk, mix until well combined and smooth.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and using a spatula, fold until just combined. Add in diced apples and fold until just combined. Avoid overmixing.
Distribute the batter into the cases in the muffin pan (until almost full — leave a little space at the top). Sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar mixture evenly across the top of the muffins.
Place into the preheated oven and then once the oven door is closed, immediately reduce the temperature to 180℃ (350℉) conventional. Cook for 20-23 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs on it.
Once done, allow the muffins to cool in the tray for 10 minutes, before carefully placing the muffins on to a wire rack to cool. Enjoy!
How to Store Apple Muffins
These apple muffins can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days. The apples do make the muffins more soft over time, so you can add a paper towel inside the container to absorb moisture and prevent them from becoming too soggy (although I quite like them like that!)
For longer storage (up to 5 days), place the muffins in an airtight container in the fridge. Bring them to room temperature or warm them slightly in the microwave before eating.
Moist Apple Muffins
Print Pin VideoIMPORTANT: For accuracy, I would recommend using the gram measurements provided, as those are the exact quantities I use. Cup measurements are given as estimates (based on US cup measurements) to make it easier for those who do not have a scale.
Ingredients
Topping
- 2½ tbsp white granulated sugar
- 1¼ tsp ground cinnamon
Apple Muffins
- 1¾ cups (210 g) all purpose flour - plain flour in the UK
- 1½ tsps baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1½ tsps ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg - optional
- ⅛ tsp ground cloves - optional
- 1 cup (200 g) white granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs - room temperature
- ½ cup (105 g) unflavored vegetable oil - I use canola oil
- ½ cup (120 g) whole milk - room temperature
- 2 tsps vanilla extract/essence
- 1¾ cups (210 g) diced fresh apples - peeled and cored. About 2 medium apples.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200℃ (390℉) conventional (see note 1 if using a convection oven) and line a 12-hole standard muffin tray with muffin liners. Set aside for now.
- Topping: Combine granulated sugar and cinnamon and stir to combine. Set aside for now.
- Muffin batter: in a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Using a whisk, mix until well combined. Set aside.
- In a large bowl add in sugar, eggs, oil, milk and vanilla. Using a whisk, mix until well combined and smooth.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and using a spatula, fold until just combined. Add in diced apples and fold until just combined. Avoid overmixing.
- Distribute the batter into the muffin cases (until almost full — leave a little space at the top). Sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar mixture evenly across the top of the muffins.
- Place into the preheated oven and then once the oven door is closed, immediately reduce the temperature to 180℃ (350℉) conventional (see note 2). Cook for 20-23 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs on it.
- Once done, allow the muffins to cool in the tray for 10 minutes, before carefully placing the muffins on to a wire rack to cool. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information are estimates only as they are automatically calculated by a third party application. Actual values may differ based on brands and types of products used.
46 Comments
Hi! I made your red velvet cake for a birthday it was delicious and the lemon in the butter icing was yum!
I’m wondering with these recipes if you substitute butter for oil do you have any tips, like melt it until liquid or add more baking powder? I know the oil is great for a moist fluffy cake but try to limit too much oil when doing daily food for the kids. Any tips much appreciated!
Going to have a search for more recipes 😄
Hi Annabel! So glad to hear you loved the red velvet cake 😀
Yes you could substitute the oil for butter if you prefer, and yes I would use melted butter (just make sure it’s not too hot – warm is okay).
Hope that helps and hope you enjoy the muffins!
These muffins were so delicious and the spices worked well together
Thanks so much Megan! So glad you loved the muffins 😀
Okay, this is the third recipe I’ve tried of MK’s and these were a hit. I’m not a fan of apples but we had some friend’s stay over so went apple picking and had a bunch leftover to use. I didn’t have time to bring the eggs and milk to room temperature and they still came out amazing. MK’s recipe are my go-to for any baked good recipe. I can trust that they will be moist, flavourful, and not too sweet. Great job, MK! THANK YOU!
Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback Erin! So so happy to hear you and your friends loved the recipe 😀
I’m honored to hear my website is your go-to for baking! Makes all the hard work worth it 🙂
Just made mini muffins with grated apples ,absolutely delicious. Baked for 12 minutes. Will definately make these again.
Thank you for this wonderful recipe
You’re so welcome Lynne! So glad to hear you loved the recipe 😀
Hi! I’m gluten intolerant. Could these be made with rice flour? It’s a cold, rainy day here in Croatia and these muffins are just what we need!
Hi Mirela! 🙂 Hmmm good question! I haven’t tried baking with rice flour as a flour substitute myself so I am not too sure sorry! I worry that the final muffins may be a little gummy if you use rice flour. Usually when people make my recipes gluten free, they use a gluten free flour that’s meant to act as a 1:1 substitute with regular flour and that tends to work well. So sorry I couldn’t be of more help Mirela! It has been rainy here in NZ too, but the sun has finally decided to come out today 😀
Very nice recipe chef 👍👌👏. I just put them in the oven can wait to taste them with my coffee. Thank you for your effort 🌞😎.
Thanks Jasson! 🙂
Hope you enjoy the muffins 😀
Looks delicious. Would it work with grated apples?
Thanks Lynne! 🙂
I haven’t tried that myself, but I think it should work fine! You may just need to adjust the cook time so keep an eye on them to make sure they aren’t overbaking 🙂
Hope that helps and would love to hear how it goes if you decide to try with the grated apples 🙂
Im from the UK and have been following your recipes. I like the way you transition from cups to grams and ingredients into what we use here in the UK. So thank you for that.
Hi Sharon! 🙂 You’re so welcome, so glad to hear the cup/gram measurements have helped!
Hope you enjoy the recipe and much love from NZ to the UK 🙂
Wow I can taste it already. but can we make it like how we do banana bread if we don’t want the chunkyness from the apples?
Hi Natalie! 🙂 If you prefer not to have apple chunks, you could try grating the apples instead (like how I do in my spiced apple cake recipe), although I haven’t tried this myself in these muffins so not sure if the cook time would change. Hope that helps and would love to hear how it goes if you decide to try it out with the shredded apples instead 🙂
I loved this recipe. Nice and easy
Yay! So glad you loved the recipe Adiela 😀
Really appreciate the wonderful feedback 🙂