This Apple Cinnamon Crumb Muffins Recipe has the added healthy ingredients of oats, nuts and lots of fresh apples for an Autumn hug.
Apple Season Inspired
The first culinary ingredient that always come to mind for me when the fall season arrives, is apples!
Apples are such a versatile fruit. Sure, most other fruits can be prepared in sweet or savory recipes.
But apples have substance. Even diced apples don’t dissolve into a puddle of juice like so many other fruits.
We live such busy lives and often find it difficult to eat healthy food on the go.
Tuck an apple in your purse or backpack and that beauty is still firm and ready when you are, which makes apples a great way to take fruit with you on the go!
Try doing that with grapes or a pit fruit, like peaches!
Apple Picking In Autumn
It’s funny how at the first sight of Spring, we go hunting for strawberry patches to pick those beautiful red berries.
Then when Autumn arrives, we go on the hunt for the best apples, at a local orchards to pick, yet again, more luscious red (usually), fruit!
Finding family fun has become increasingly more difficult, now that we are all stuck to a screen.
I promise you though (having raised 4 of my own), a family outing, time together, time with nature, will cultivate the best memories.
Return home with a bag full of delicious fruit and you can continue to linger together as a family, in the kitchen.
Make something delicious, that your family helped to gather, perhaps make and the dish will have more meaning. Perhaps it will even become a tradition they continue when grown.
Healthy Apple Muffins Recipe
As is usually the way, a ‘quick bread‘ recipe is made with the combination of wet ingredients, mixed with dry ingredients, and risen with a quick rising agent, usually baking soda.
What makes a muffin recipe healthy, is the ingredients used in the dry and wet ingredients.
The healthier fat used in this recipe is the use of a vegetable oil instead of butter, in which coconut oil is my first choice of a vegetable oil to use.
It has a way of making moist and tender muffins instead of dense and sometimes dry.
Another aspect of a healthier muffin is found in the dry ingredients, and for this recipe I grind walnuts, also adding more natural oils, and cut down on the all purpose flour.
Cinnamon Apple Muffins
These easy apple muffins come together fast, whether you peel the skins or choose to leave them on.
Tossing the apple pieces in cinnamon, allspice and cloves, before mixing the remaining ingredients, allows the apple to become coated in the wonderful apple pie spice we all know and love.
However, to make preparation time quicker, simple toss wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and when it bakes, the spices will become incorporated into every single bite.
The bake time is quick, producing a dozen, and with a small airtight container, a single delicious apple muffin can go where you need to go!
Decadent Autumn Crumb Topping
Often times, a crumble placed on the top of a quick bread is a mixture of butter, sugar and flour, sometimes rolled oats.
However, for the crumble on decadent healthy muffin, I’ve chosen to make the crumble out of finely chopped walnuts, cinnamon and a drizzle of maple syrup for a lovely nutty, slightly sweet healthier version.
The use of maple syrup, agave or honey is the perfect way to cut back on over processed sugar.
Warm Cinnamon Screams Of Autumn
When the weather begins to cool and the days become shorter, ovens begin to crank up once again for the fall and winter months.
I’m sure most would agree that there is nothing quite like biting into a freshly baked bread, cake or pie that is fragrant with the aroma of cinnamon.
Did you know that cinnamon is one of the most common spices used in baking and cooking around the world?
It is known by cooks, both professional and home cooks to add the scent or flavor to the dish being prepared.
While you might think of cinnamon as primarily a spice used in sweets, having grown up with a Syrian mother, I first knew cinnamon as the spice used in meat dishes.
After all, cinnamon is not sweet until sugar is added to it, and actually quite ‘peppery hot’ to the taste.
Cooking With Apples
If you’re looking for an easy snack or dessert for raw apples, look no further than whipping up some homemade Salt Caramel. It’s perfect for dipping apple slices in, or making Popcorn Balls out of.
While we know how delicious apples are raw, let’s chat about some fabulous recipes that showcase cooked apples.
- Apple Baklava– an American twist on a traditional Mediterranean dessert.
- Apples Wellington – a whimsical way of stuffing a whole apple with spices and nuts, then wrapping a pastry around it to look just like an apple, baked to perfection.
- Autumn’s Best Apple Pie – Autumn’s Best Apple Pie Recipe With Homemade Crust incorporates your choice of apples, sweet or tart, warm autumn spices and a buttery homemade crust.
- Apple Oat & Almond Muffins – healthy enough to be breakfast, naturally sweet enough to be dessert, found in my cookbook of 52 muffins.
- Apple Salad In A Cabbage Bowl– a traditional savory apple salad, served in a seasonal Savoy cabbage.
- Barbecue Sauce – while tomatoes are often the fruit used to make a barbecue sauce, apples make an even richer flavor and texture.
52 Muffins In My Muffin Madness
So, why didn’t this scrumptious apple cinnamon crumb muffins recipe make it into my recently published muffin cookbook?
Well, My Muffin Madness, was just that; during a flurry of 3 straight months, I was creating muffin recipes day and night.
Poor hubby, it’s about all he ate during that frenzy of fun in my kitchen.
However, now that autumn has arrived, two years after I published my fabulous and unique cookbook, I quietly went into my kitchen with apples on my mind, and created a new one, just for you and me!
Equipment Needed
- 12-cups Muffin Tin
- Mixing bowls – of various sizes
- Food processor
- Measuring cup and spoons
- Apple peeler
- Cutting board and sharp knife
- Oven
Ingredients Needed
- Eggs
- Coconut oil or other preferred vegetable oil
- Brown sugar
- Apples
- Plain Greek yogurt
- Lemon juice
- Venilla extract
- Walnuts
- Spelt flour or all purpose
- Cinnamon
- Allspice
- Cloves
- Salt
- Maple syrup
Apple Cinnamon Crumb Muffins Recipe – Healthy
Equipment
- Muffin tin
- Food processor or blender
- Cooking spray or baking paper cup liners
Ingredients
- Wet Ingredients
- 3 Eggs
- 1/2 cup Coconut oil room temperature or slightly melted
- 1/3 cup Light brown sugar
- 2 cups Grated Apples Pink lady for sweet or granny smith apples for tart
- 1/3 cup Greek yogurt plain
- 1 tbsp Lemon juice
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- Dry Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Ground Walnuts or pecans
- 2 cups Spelt flour or all purpose
- 1 tbsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Allspice
- 1/4 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- Crumble
- 1/2 cup Walnuts or pecans, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp Maple syrup
- 1 tbsp Brown sugar
- pinch Salt
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350Prepare muffin tin with either cooking spray or baking paper liners
- In a large bowl, whisk the wet ingredients together until light and creamy, preferably with a hand mixer. Set aside.In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk the crumble ingredients together and set aside.
- Whisk the flour mixture into the wet apple mixture until well blended. Spoon batter evenly into the prepared muffin tin. Place a small dollop of the crumble mixture on tops of the muffins.
- Bake until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean, about 20-minutes. Remove and place on a wire rack to cool.
Notes
I believe the table... that place that draws people to gather, is the most powerful symbol of togetherness. All that happens before the table is set, the planning, the gathering, the preparing, are all an intricate part of the dance that create the mood of celebration to share with friends and loved ones.