Cinnamon Spiced Apple Muffins with Streusel Topping

Cinnamon spiced apple muffins are full of warm cinnamon flavours and bursting with pieces of delicious apple. Apple and cinnamon are a classic flavour combination, the absolute best of friends. But don’t just take my word for it, find out for yourself. Enjoy these muffins plain and unadorned or topped with a streusel topping that adds so much texture to these wonderful fruit muffins.

All about Cinnamon spiced apple muffins

• Flavour – The flavour of these muffins is wonderful. Flavoured with cinnamon, apples, all enhanced by the caramelly notes of muscovado sugar, all the delicious flavours and textures of autumn.
• Texture – These mufffins have that lovely muffin texture, denser than a cupcake but still light and airy. The apple pieces soften during baking to give little pieces of soft fruit when you eat them.
• Difficulty – This recipe is easy. If you’re fairly new to baking then this is a recipe for you. It includes a few steps; preparing the fruit and the streusel topping and making the muffin batter but there is nothing complicated to do.
  • Like most muffin recipes this one is unfussy and is made as a batter. The batter is made by simply mixing the wet ingredients into the dry ones and combining. There’s no fuss involved. You just stir until there are no dry ingredients clinging to the side of the bowl and that’s as difficult as it gets. The batter is a little thicker than usual but this is because the apples release moisture as they bake.
  • The apples are peeled, cored and chopped fairly small. I like to remove the skins first, apple skin can sometimes be unpleasant in small cakes – too chewy.
  • The streusel mixture, if you use it and I hope you do, makes these muffins fantastic. It just requires mixing together. It’s a very easy process.
  • Spoon the mixture iinto the waiting muffin pan, top with the streusel and bake. Now just wait for your reward of amazing muffins. They’re easy, simple and fast to make.

Cinnamon spiced apple muffins: Ingredients

These muffins use everyday ingredients making this a recipe that you can easily make again and again.

• apples – this uses 1 – 2 medium eating apples. Varieties such as Pink Lady, Fuji, Cox’s Orange Pippin are all good. They have a nice sweet flavour and keep a little bit of texture when they bake.
• oats – rolled oats are included in the streusel topping. These add a little texture and a little goodness too.
• melted butter – this is used in the batter and the streusel topping. It adds lovely flavour but can be substituted for non-dairy margarine (suitable or baking) if you need to.
• milk, eggs – wet ingredients to bring all the dry ingredients together and form a batter.
• flour, baking powder – this recipe uses plain flour otherwise know as all-purpose flour. The baking powder helps the whole mixture to rise so that they’re light and fluffy

Overview of Making Cinnamon Spiced Apple Muffins

This is really simple. The art of muffin making is to be a little bit relaxed about mixing the wet ingredients into the dry. If you’ve spent years ensuring that your cake and cupcake mixtures are silky smooth, then muffin batters may mean that you need to take a deep breath, connect with your inner muffin-maker and allow that batter to be lumpy. It’s just as nature (or the art of the muffin), requires.

Gather up your ingredients so that you have everything to hand.

It helps to prepare the streusel topping before making the muffin batter so that when you’ve finished spooning muffin batter into the cases, it’s very quick to sprinkle the topping on the top before baking.

The other job to do before making the batter is to prepare the apples. Peel and core the fruit. It’s tempting to leave the skin on but often the skin remains quite chewy which isn’t that pleasant. So, remove the skin and chop your apple into small dice. This means that they’ll cook through nicely and be wonderfully soft in the baked muffin.

The precise instructions are in the recipe below but basically, in separate bowls, you mix the dry ingredients together and then mix wet ingredients together. Mix the wet mixture into the dry and stir until there are no dry flour lumps to be seen. It’s perfectly ok if the batter looks lumpy and it really will because of the little apple chunks.

Finally, distribute the mixture between the muffin cases, gently distribute the streusel topping over the muffin tops and pop into the oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Quick. Simple.

The Streusel Topping

This is obviously optional but it is quite delicious. Some people call this a crumb topping. A streusel topping is just a simple topping, made with a few ingredients, that adds a little sweetness and a little craggy texture. It is a nice topping to use on muffins and it means that you don’t need to be tempted to add icing because they look pretty just as they are. What do you think?

Storing Muffins

All muffins are at their very best if eaten fresh. When they’re fresh they’re wonderfully aromatic… light, fluffy, delicious. However, not everyone can dispatch a dozen homemade muffins in one sitting, so …

• Store in an airtight container and eat within two to three days.

If this isn’t possible then freeze some away for later. These muffins freeze successfully.

• Freeze in air-tight containers or zip lock bags. Remove from the freezer when needed and thaw on the work surface. Warming them briefly in the oven or microwave will restore these muffins beautifully.

Hope you enjoy the muffins!

If you like this recipe then maybe you’ll enjoy these too…

• Blueberry Muffins
• Cranberry and White Chocolate Muffins
• Lemon and Poppy Seeds Muffins
• Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Rock Cakes
• Castella Cake
• Blueberry Orange Muffins
• Easy Honey Cake
• Toffee Cake
• How to make Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes: Quick and Easy Recipe

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