Vegan Apple Cinnamon Muffins
on Oct 07, 2016, Updated Sep 23, 2023
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So light and fluffy these vegan apple cinnamon muffins are a simple fall bake. Enjoy them for breakfast, brunch or a snack. They have lots of cinnamon and vanilla flavor with diced apples mixed in. Before they go into the oven, you sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar, which gives the tops a little bit of crunch.
For another spiced seasonal baking recipe, try these cinnamon scones.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- You won’t know these cinnamon apple muffins are vegan because they have such a tender crumb. Even though they don’t have eggs or butter, they still turn out light and sweet.
- There’s no better way to get excited about fall baking than with apples and cinnamon. There are a group of spices that just go with apples. Besides cinnamon, that includes cardamom, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. There’s a reason why you often find them in recipes with apples, and nothing says autumn more than that.
- You can freeze baked muffins. We all know that most from-scratch baked goods taste best at their freshest. To extend their shelf-life while preserving them at peak condition, you shouldn’t hesitate to freeze them.
The Ingredients
This is what you need for these vegan muffins:
- Flour: No surprise, the muffins call for all-purpose flour.
- Cinnamon is stirred into the dry ingredients, and it’s sprinkled on top of the muffins along with sugar.
- Granny Smith apples are the quintessential baking apple. What I like about them in this recipe is how their tart flavor balances with the sweetness of the muffins.
- Sugar: These muffins are sweetened with granulated sugar.
- Baking powder is the leavening agent that helps the muffins rise so beautifully.
- Vegetable oil: You can use canola oil, sunflower oil or another neutral type. I don’t recommend using olive oil because you don’t want that flavor to compete with the cinnamon and vanilla.
- Oat milk is my preferred plant-based milk for baking.
- Apple cider vinegar adds nice tang, but more importantly, it helps the muffins rise.
- Vanilla extract gives the muffins lovely vanilla flavor.
- Salt: Don’t be tempted to leave it out just because this is a baking recipe. Salt has a way of activating all the other flavors whether they are sweet or savory.
How To Make These Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
1. Combine the dry ingredients including flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
2. Combine the wet ingredients in a medium bowl by whisking the oil, milk, apple cider vinegar and vanilla extract.
3. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Do this very gently and stop when you still can see some of the flour mixture. Then add the diced apples and finish stirring the batter.
4. Combine the cinnamon and sugar for the muffin topping.
5. Spoon the batter into the pan and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. The muffin cups should be pretty full, and they will rise as they bake.
6. Bake the muffins until they have puffed up and are golden brown and cracked on top. This will take about 25-30 minutes. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then take them out and transfer them to a cooling rack. You can eat them warm or at room temperature.
Serving
Muffins are always great for breakfast or brunch because it’s so quick and easy to whip up the batter to bake them. Again, they taste best when they are freshly baked. You can also have them as a mid morning or afternoon snack with coffee or tea.
Leftovers, Storage & Freezing
Since these apple cinnamon muffins have chunks of fresh fruit in them, they can be kept in an airtight container up to 2 days. Because they are so moist, you will lose the crispness of their cinnamon sugar tops the longer they are stored, and they can go bad. That’s why I recommend freezing extras.
Before freezing muffins, make sure to let them cool to room temperature. Then put them in a freezer bag and press out as much air as you can before sealing it. The best way to thaw them is by putting them in the fridge overnight. Especially because these muffins are delicate and almost cake-like in the middle, you want them to thaw gradually rather than thawing them at room temperature straight from the freezer.
Once they have thawed, then you can take them out of the refrigerator to lose that chill. You can warm them in a 300-degree F oven. Do not microwave them because they will become dense.
Recipe Tips
- Don’t over mix the batter. If you stir the batter too much you will end up with tunneling, which are those holes that you see in the middle of baked goods like muffins, quick breads and cakes.
- Be mindful when storing these muffins. They are very moist with the apple chunks, so eat them when they are freshly baked.
- It’s best to use paper liners instead of greasing your muffin pan with cooking spray. This will make them easier to remove from the pan, and you’ll have less cleanup.
Recipe FAQs
Absolutely. If you want to make a chai-spiced apple muffin, use 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon cardamom, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon cloves.
No. You can make these just cinnamon muffins. Please know that you will end up with fewer muffins or smaller muffins because you won’t have diced apples taking up space in the pan.
I like oat milk in vegan baking because it is creamy. But you can use almond milk or soy milk instead.
More Muffin Recipes
Vegan Blueberry Chia Muffins
Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins
Corn Muffins
Vegan Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Ingredients
- 2-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1-1/2 cups oat milk
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 Granny Smith apples peeled, cored and diced
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, baking powder, salt and 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, apple cider vinegar and vanilla extract.
- Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Wait until a little of the flour mixture is visible to stir in the apples, stopping right when everything is just combined.
- In a small bowl, stir the remaining cinnamon and sugar.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. The muffin cups should be almost full.
- Sprinkle the muffin batter with cinnamon sugar.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until the tops are golden brown and the muffins spring back when lightly pressed in the middle.
- Let the muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then take them out and allow them to cool longer on a wire rack.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
These muffins are SO GOOD!
Made them for the first time last week and they were an absolute hit with the family! Was told this is their new favorite muffin flavor – and I 100% agree.
Obviously here to make more tonight and had to comment on the deliciousness!