These easy apple cinnamon muffins are moist, tender, and filled with fresh apples. I love the streusel topping, which makes these muffins extra delicious and a bit crunchy. These apple muffins are perfect for fall baking season!
I’ve been testing tons of recipes with apples lately, and these delicious apple cinnamon muffins are my latest obsession! Apples and cinnamon are two of my favorite things about fall season, so every time I bake these muffins, it smells like fall in my house. I love it!
These apple cinnamon muffins are so moist and tender. They are also filled with fresh apples and topped with a delicious streusel topping. They are so easy to make too!
I always love baking a batch of these over the weekend. Let me show you how to make the most delicious apple muffins ever!
Ingredients You’ll Need
Per usual, you can find the specific ingredient quantities for this apple cinnamon muffin recipe in the recipe card below, but I wanted to give you an idea of the ingredients and what each does:
- Flour: For structure, all-purpose flour works here.
- Sugars: Use both granulated and brown sugar for flavor and texture.
- Baking soda: The main leavener that will help the muffins rise.
- Baking powder: Another leavener that will also provide that golden brown color.
- Salt: To bring out flavors.
- Ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg: For flavor. The nutmeg is optional.
- Unsalted butter: Use melted and cooled butter for texture and flavor.
- Greek yogurt and whole milk: For moisture and tenderness.
- Large eggs: For structure.
- Vanilla extract: Flavor.
- Diced fresh apples: Use firm apples, such as Honeycrisp.
- For the streusel topping: Flour, sugar, cinnamon salt, and melted and cooled butter.
The Streusel Topping
I love baking apple muffins with a homemade streusel topping because it adds crunch. Streusel is a crumbly mixture usually made with flour, sugar, butter. Most often, it’s used on pies, muffins, and cakes.
For these apple cinnamon muffins, I add cinnamon to the streusel. I promise it’s not overpowering at all! It’s so delicious and adds so much flavor to the muffins.
Some people like to use cold butter to make the streusel topping, but I simply drizzle in some melted and cooled butter into the dry ingredients, whisking to form somewhat moist crumbles. It works great and is so much easier.
If you prefer not to use a streusel topping, that’s totally fine too. Just leave it out. I bake apple muffins without streusel all the time and they turn out great.
Tip! Make sure the melted butter is cooled, and whisk with a fork as you drizzle in the melted butter. Otherwise, you’ll get large clumps of dough instead.
Let’s Make Apple Muffins!
Making apple cinnamon muffins is super easy!
This recipe uses the normal method of combining dry ingredients with wet ingredients, and folding in apples. It takes about 20 minutes of prep work and about 20 minutes to bake. You can make delicious apple muffins in under 1 hour!
Here is a general overview of how to make these muffins, just to give you an idea. Per usual, all the specific instructions are in the recipe card below.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F: Yes, 425! You only need to bake them at this high temperature for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, turn it down to 350 degrees F. The high initial temperature will help the muffins rise beautifully.
- Mix the dry ingredients: Flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg.
- Mix the wet ingredients: Melted butter, eggs, yogurt, milk, vanilla extract.
- Combine dry with wet ingredients and fold in the apples until just combined. This is the batter.
- Make the streusel topping: Gradually drizzle melted and cooled butter into the dry streusel ingredients, whisking with a fork to form moist crumbs. Make sure the butter is cooled down!
- Fill a 12-muffin pan with the prepared batter and top with the streusel.
- Bake! The first 5 minutes at 425 degrees F. After that, reduce to 350 degrees F for another 15-18 minutes.
How to Get That Beautiful Muffin Dome
The initial high temperature of 425 degrees F will allow the muffins to rise beautifully. Then, reduce to 350 degrees F for the remaining bake time so that they don’t collapse. This is a trick I learned from the amazing Sally at Sally’s Baking Addiction. It works every single time!
Here’s how it works: Baking at high temperatures can make baked goods rise very fast, which then causes them to collapse. HOWEVER, for muffins, baking at a high temperature for the first 5 minutes will actually help them rise quickly, and then reducing to 350 degrees F will ensure they continue baking without collapsing. The results? Beautifully risen muffins!
You’ll love these apple cinnamon muffins. They are so moist and tender, and are so easy to make. The fresh apples and cinnamon will give you all the fall vibes. Plus, that delicious cinnamon streusel topping is just amazing! I’m already drooling over here.
I like to eat these muffins with a warm cup of coffee for breakfast. It’s the best thing ever! I hope you love this recipe as much as I do.
More Fall baking recipes you must try:
Tips for Success
- Be sure not to overmix the batter. Overmixed batters can lead to tough and chewy muffins.
- High muffin domes: The initial high temperature of 425 degrees F will allow the muffins to rise quick at first to get that high dome. After 5 minutes, reduce to 350 degrees F to continue baking.
- Use firm apples, such as Honeycrisp or Fuji apples so that they hold their shape. These types of apples will also add a slight crunch to each bite.
Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Ingredients
Muffins
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (1 stick)
- ½ cup plain Greek yogurt
- ¼ cup whole milk
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups peeled and diced fresh apples (Honeycrisp or Fuji)
Streusel topping:
- ⅔ cup all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- A pinch of salt
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a 12-muffin tin with cooking spray or butter, and set aside.
- Dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk all-purpose flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, and ground nutmeg (if using) until evenly combined. Set aside.
- Wet ingredients: In a separate large bowl, mix the melted butter, Greek yogurt, milk, eggs, and vanilla extract until well combined.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix until evenly combined without overmixing. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the diced apples into the batter until just combined. Set aside.
- Make the streusel topping: In a bowl, whisk the streusel topping’s dry ingredients (flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, ground cinnamon, and salt). Then, gradually drizzle in the melted and cooled butter, whisking with a fork as you add the butter. This will prevent large clumps from forming. You’re looking for somewhat moist crumbles.
- Fill the prepared muffin pan with the batter, almost all the way to the top. Sprinkle the prepared streusel on top.
- Bake at 425 degrees F for 5 minutes to get that high muffin top quickly (middle rack). Then reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Remove from oven. Let cool slightly and enjoy!
Notes
- Use firm apples, such as Honeycrisp or Fuji apples. They will hold their shape better and provide a slight crunch.
- If you prefer not to use the streusel topping, feel free to omit it.
- Storing: store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
- Freezing: If you want to freeze the muffins, it’s better if you omit the streusel topping in the recipe. To freeze, wrap the baked and cooled muffins with plastic wrap. Transfer to a resealable bag and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator.
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