Moist inside, crunchy on top, these vegan apple muffins are made with vegan butter and will walk off your kitchen table! The buttery, cinnamon spiced, slightly sweet apple muffins are our new favourite for breakfast on the go!
Vegan Apple Muffins
I just love cinnamon with apple – it’s the perfect combination. These brown sugared cinnamon apple muffins topped with melting sugar icing, are delicious. They’re not always easy to find in my local coffee shop so I just had to make them myself.
After a trial run, I got this to where I want it – soft, crispy, buttery, cinnamony, with apple as the star, and topped with icing! It ticks all the boxes for me! The intense apple flavour is made with:
- Diced fresh juicy apples, sweetened by brown sugar, spiced with cinnamon and bursting with flavour
- Apple cider vinegar
- Apple juice infused in sugar icing on top
For me, baking with apples must involve brown sugar and cinnamon!
And these cinnamon apple muffins are topped off with the buttery cinnamon spiced crumbs and sugar icing on top! You can use any plant based milk for this recipe.
I used soy milk because it's works well for the buttermilk. Of course, there’s no dairy and it’s eggless as you’d expect for vegan apple cinnamon muffins.
How to Make Vegan Apple Muffins
Making muffins is simple and straightforward. Muffins were my first real baking attempt. You just mix the ingredients, bake and indulge. But there’s a few things to pay attention to.
How to measure the flour
Always measure the flour for baking. With more flour, the muffins become heavy and dense. We want fluffy and light muffins.
What you can do is:
- Transfer the flour into a container or a bag.
- Then spoon the flour into the measuring cup. Gently pile it until it forms a heap above the rim (do not scoop up the flour directly with the measuring cup).
- Then scrape a knife across the top of the cup to level the flour to the exact measurement.
Getting the baking right
This recipe relies on a combination of baking powder and baking soda to make the muffins light and fluffy.
You are going to bake the muffins with higher heat for 5 minutes and then reduce the heat. The hot burst will help the muffins rise quickly. It will then bake the batter evenly and keep it moist inside. No one likes dry muffins!
Why use brown sugar and granulated sugar?
Each has a different role in the baking process:
- Brown sugar makes the muffins moist. When it reacts with baking soda, it rises less and spreads more horizontally.
- Granulated sugar aerates the dough when it's mixed with butter. Muffins then become soft and fluffy. (source)
How to combine the muffin batter
Gently fold the ingredients. Kneading or excessive mixing the batter should be avoided. Otherwise, the muffins get too dense, dry and flavourless!
Whipping the batter will make extra gluten protein from the flour resulting in tough muffins. A hand mixer sounds tempting but it’s best not to use it for this if you like light and fluffy muffins.
Once you’ve gently combined both dry and wet ingredients, spoon the batter into the muffin liners. Place the crumbs on top of each. Press down a little so the crumbs stick to the batter.
Bake the muffins for 20 minutes in total (5 mins on high, 15 mins on low). Once the muffins cool down, pour icing on top of the crumbs.
Serve immediately! Enjoy!
Tips for Vegan Apple Muffins
How to save them?
These vegan apple muffins can be kept in an airtight container for 3 days at room temperature. You can keep them in the fridge for a week.
Can you freeze Apple Muffins?
Yes. You can freeze them for 1 month. Once the muffins are cooled down completely, transfer them into a freezer friendly container. Leave them at room temperature to defrost for 30 minutes.
Gluten Free Vegan Apple Muffins
When all purpose flour is replaced with gluten free flour, the muffins tend to be slightly dry. This is because rice flour, tapioca flour or potato starch is contained. Yoghurt and oil can help with this so try adding some to the batter.
Hungry for More Vegan Muffins?
Vegan Zucchini Muffins
Strawberry Muffins
Vegan Apple Muffins
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 1¾ cup all purpose flour (219g)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
- ¼ cup unsalted vegan butter (60g)
- ½ cup brown sugar (100g)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar (25g)
- 2 tbsp canola oil (30ml)
- 1 tbsp ground flaxseeds (add 2½ tbsp water)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- ½ cup soy milk (120ml)
- 1½ cup diced apples (250g)
- ½ tbsp apple cider vinegar
Crumbs
- 3 tbsp cold butter (40g)
- ½ cup all purpose flour (62g)
- ¼ cup almond flour (34g)
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar (15g)
- ¼ cup brown sugar (50g)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Sugar Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar 120g
- ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
- fresh apple juice (1½ - 2 tbsp) (22-30ml)
Instructions
Preparation
- Place the paper liners on the muffin tin. Or grease with oil or spray.
- Combine soy milk and apple cider vinegar and whisk. This is your butter milk. Set aside.
- Preheat oven at 425 degree F (218°C).
Crumb Topping
- Whisk sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Then add cold butter. Combine them by rubbing butter until it forms crumbs and clumps. Use your fingers. Chill in the fridge until ready for use. Set aside.
Wet Ingredients
- Beat the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar on high speed until the mixture becomes smooth and creamy. It takes about 2 minutes. Collect the ingredients by scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Add the flax egg and pure vanilla extract. Beat all the ingredients at a medium speed until it's well combined and smooth. It takes about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides. Set aside.
Dry Ingredients
- Whisk all the dry ingredients and sift them in a bowl.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add the buttermilk into the dry flour parts of the bowl and throw in diced apples.
- Start folding the ingredients with a spatula. Do not overmix but scoop up with the spatula from the bottom to the top. Keep folding the ingredients until the batter becomes even. If some flour is not completely mixed in that’s fine – it’s more important not to overmix.
Baking
- Spoon the batter into each muffin liner and fill into the top of each cup. Top off with crumbs. Gently press the crumbs so that they stick to the batter on the top of the muffins.
- Bake at 425 degree F (218°C) for 5 minutes.
- Then turn the oven down and bake at 350 degree F(177°C) for 15 to 17 minutes. Insert a toothpick in the center and if it comes out clean, the muffins are ready. In total, the baking time is 20 to 22 minutes
- Remove the muffins from the oven and dry them out on a cooling rack.While baking the muffin, make the sugar icing. Whisk all the ingredients and combine. Drop the icing over muffins.Serve immediately. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes:
- Transfer the flour into a container or a bag.
- Then spoon the flour into a measuring cup. Gently pile it until it forms a heap above the rim (do not scoop up the flour directly with the measuring cup.)
- Then scrape a knife across the top of the cup to level the flour.
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