This Maple Pecan Muffin Recipe is one of 52 favorite muffin recipes from my muffin madness cookbook, the best muffins recipes with unique flavor.
Easy Muffin Recipes
Sure, we all love scrumptious apple cinnamon muffins, at the onset of Autumn.
When there is lots of overripe bananas, we want healthy banana muffins too.
However, if the muffin recipe we want to make, isn’t fast and easy, chances are we’ll end up buying a ‘quickie’ at our pit-stop coffee shop, and who knows what’s in those!
I can promise you that the actual nutritional content of my muffins have been carefully chosen, for the love of my children, of whom I created them for.
Homemade Muffins With A Purpose
There’s a good reason I created 52 muffins, in My Muffin Madness cookbook; as a single mom of four, I needed a ‘make-ahead breakfast’ for those insanely busy years.
Not just any ole store bought muffin or boxed muffin, but healthy muffin recipes with less sugar, wholesome ingredients, whether savory muffins or seasonal flavor muffins; like the beloved pumpkin muffin.
Want to know what the best part of this collection of muffin recipes is?
These easy recipe muffins could be (and were), made by the kids (taking turns of course, so no bickering), making my job as a single mom a tad easier.
That is why, in my family, I am known as the Muffin Queen!
Let’s Talk First About A Base Recipe Before I Share My Best Muffin Recipes With You
The good news is that nearly every basic muffin recipe starts out with rather basic ingredients; dry ingredients and wet ingredients, using something to puff them up.
As I pondered every muffin recipe I would create, these were the first two categories I gave much thought to, and where I could incorporate healthy ingredients.
Dry Ingredients, are definitely much more than all purpose flour and baking powder.
This category is the perfect way to build nutritional support into these individual little quick breads.
Options For The Flour Mixture
- Almond flour, or any nut, oat, spelt or barley flake, ground into a flour.
- Whole wheat flour or gluten-free option flour, instead of bleached flour.
- Dry sweetener, can be white sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar, stevia, or monk fruit sweetener.
- Cocoa powder, carob powder, protein powder, depending on the flavor, or muffin you are making, becomes part of the dry ingredient mixture.
- Warm spices such as our favorite cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, or exotic spices such as Mahlab, Mastic, even root powders such as beets measure into the dry mix.
Wet Ingredient Options
- Some type of fat is needed to make for moist muffins and there are so many choices here, from melted butter, a vegetable oil, nut oils, or simply use the fat in almond butter or peanut butter.
- Eggs contribute much of the rising aspect when baking muffins, and while egg substitutes can be used such as flax egg or aquafaba (the liquid in a can of chickpeas), these options work however the rise or texture may not be quite the same.
- Creamy ingredients have so many options, from the basic milk in your fridge (dairy, coconut milk or almond milk), to Greek yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese.
- The wet aspect of the muffin batter must also take into account, when balancing wet and dry, ingredients such as maple syrup or honey, pumpkin if making pumpkin muffins, squashed banana, fresh blueberries or other fresh fruit juices such as lemon juice. These are wet aspects that need balancing along with the dry ingredients.
Making The Muffin Recipe
Once the wet and dry ingredients have been mixed, along with your favorite add-ins, we are ready to bake.
A muffin tin is most commonly used, metal or silicone, and they are usually lined with muffin liners, also known as cupcake liners.
The use of paper liners makes it easier to remove the muffins once baked, without the added step of having to grease or spray the muffin cups.
I have also included, in my cookbook, a fun Tahini Muffin Tops recipe (in my cookbook), because let’s face it, we usually love the tops most, however these muffin tops tins do need to be greased.
Last is the consideration of the oven temperature.
Regardless of the muffin recipe, I find the best results by placing in a high temperature setting, even if you turn it down after the first 5-minutes of bake time.
This helps to firm a crust on the muffin tops, while baking the inside of the muffin consistently.
Muffins will last about a week in an airtight container in the fridge, but are best served room temperature or as warm muffins.
Best Breakfast Muffin Recipes To Love
Like I said, there are 52 muffin recipes in my cookbook, and I am continually adding more new ones here on my blog.
However, the muffins I am listing here, usually rank at the top of healthy breakfast muffins folks are generally looking for.
- Apple Muffins – Recipe has the added healthy ingredients of oats, nuts and lots of fresh apples for an Autumn hug.
- Zucchini Muffins – European inspired healthier zucchini lemon bread or muffin recipe is made with pure Rapeseed oil, kefir, lots of garden fresh zucchini and two whole lemons.
- Healthy Muffins made of Homemade Breakfast Granola – with oats, bran, spelt, nuts, dried fruits and maple syrup or molasses, is packed with nutrition and no added sugar.
- Strawberry Muffins – this recipe made with millet flour, cottage cheese, both fresh strawberries and dried, can be found in My Muffin Madness cookbook.
- Best Blueberry muffins – are a smoothie bowl To-Go, baked with oats, yogurt, plump blueberries, cardamom, more practical than a bowl!
- Banana Muffin Recipe – are made with barley flour, sweet ripe bananas, olive oil, yogurt and molasses, for the best healthy banana muffins ever.
- Oatmeal Muffins – healthy overnight oat muffins with ginger for our tummy, molasses for bones, oats for everything and cardamom, a cholesterol aid, are muffins for all.
- Sweet Potato Muffins – while this recipe was created around an AB Blood type, and can only be found in my cookbook, its concept was designed from my Sweet Potato Pie.
Best Savory Muffin Recipes
Since I am more of a savory food eater than a sweets eater, I went a bit nuts in creating fun savory muffins that are family favorite whimsical recipes.
Savory muffins are a great way to make a small to-go meal with healthy ingredients.
- Egg muffins – of course these are filled with anything from veggies to sausage and cheese, and are as good for lunch, late-in-the-day snack or a breakfast muffin. Created to be more like a quiche without the crust and are in my cookbook!
- Spanakopita muffins – all the yummy spinach, feta, lemon, fresh oregano and eggs found in spanakopita, made into a muffin, without phyllo!
- Cheeseburger muffins – All your favorite burger ingredients in a muffin batter with another mini cheeseburger on top, pickles and tomatoes!
- Pizza – yes these muffins are also a part of the cookbook and with each bite, you’d swear it was a pizza, with sausage, parmesan crisps and lots of tomato and garlic.
- O-Blood Type Muffin – made with bison or venison, goat cheese, beet greens, pepper flakes and lots of other unique ingredients, this recipe too can only be found in my Muffin Madness cookbook.
Today’s Muffin Recipe Is Maple Pecan
The flavors of Autumn often bring to mind warm spices, maple syrup and favorite nuts.
For this reason, I created this maple pecan muffin recipe because it is as delicious for a breakfast muffin as it is to enjoy for afternoon tea or coffee.
Autumn harvested pecans, springs harvest of maple syrup, warm spices and some oats make for the perfect weekend muffin.
Pecans In Seasonal Recipes
While these nutty, almost sweet nuts from the southern states of America, begin their growing season in the spring, they aren’t ready to harvest until the chilly months of October through Christmas.
Since pecans are ripe for the picking during these last three months of the year, perhaps it is why they make their appearance throughout so many of the holiday recipes we all enjoy during this time of year.
Pecans, when ground, make for a lovely nutty flour for baking.
Since I created this recipe in autumn, I wanted to incorporate other flavors we love this time of year as well; ginger, cardamom and maple syrup as well as maple sugar.
Maple Syrup and Maple Sugar
The distinct flavor of Maple Syrup is very different from honey or agave. Since it is usually a boiled sap from the maple tree, the longer it is boiled, the deeper the flavor and color.
Maple syrup has a definite flavor of caramel, but oddly it also tastes of plums, or perhaps a dried (more sugar content), prune. The flavor makes it excellent for both sweet or savory recipes.
Definitely worth trying during the Autumn months is Maple Sugar, with much the same flavor profile as maple syrup since it is actually the syrup boiled down until it crystalizes.
For these scrumptious muffins I used maple syrup in the batter and sprinkled maple sugar on the top before baking.
Ingredients Needed
- Pecans
- Oats
- Flour
- Salt
- Cardamom
- Ginger
- Baking soda
- Baking powder
- Butter
- Maple syrup
- Sugar
- Eggs
- Milk
- Maple sugar
Meal Prep Muffins
Often we think of ‘meal prep’ as a time set aside on the weekends to chop lots of veggies and meat, set aside lots of legumes, or pre-cook some carbs to portion out for weekday meals.
Muffins, when made in a batch over the weekend, can be loaded with so many healthful ingredients, like fruits, nuts and wholesome grains, even veggies, meats and cheeses.
Muffins make for the perfect ‘fast’ breakfast, midday pick-me-up, or an after school/work snack to boost us until dinner time rolls around.
Muffins are fast and easy to make, often mixed in 5-minutes and cooked in 30-minutes AND anyone can make them.
Muffin Equipment
It helps to have an electric blender, mixer or food processor, but in those early years I often just used a hand wire whisk and a big mixing bowl.
If I needed ground nuts, I often just put them in a baggy and hammered them into tiny chunks or even flour.
Thankfully, mini processors are so darn affordable and make the job fast and easy. Now I will also grind my grains or seeds into flour.
A muffin tin, either the 12-cup kind that holds about 1/3 cup of batter for a medium size muffin or the jumbo muffin tin, that hold 3/4 cup of batter and makes 6 jumbo muffins, is what will be needed for baking.
A non-stick spray, or a basting brush to brush a little oil on the tins, OR just some baking papers, which don’t need to be oiled, making clean up easier.
- Food processor
- Whisk
- Mixing bowl
- Muffin tins or muffin tops pan
- Basting brush
- Non-stick spray
- Baking paper cups
- Measuring cup
- Measuring spoons
- Oven
Maple Pecan Muffin Recipe
Equipment
- Muffin tin
- muffin paper liners
- Food processor or blender for grinding nuts and oats
Ingredients
- 1 cup Pecans – ground to flour 12 whole for topping
- 1 cup Oats – ground to flour
- 1 3/4 cup All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom
- 1/2 tsp Ginger
- 1/2 tsp Baking soda
- 2 tsp Baking powder
- 6 tbsp Unsalted Butter melted
- 1/4 cup Maple syrup
- 1/2 cup Sugar your choice
- 2 Eggs
- 1/2 cup Milk your choice
- 1 tbsp Maple sugar or raw coarse sugar for toppings
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350
- Line muffin tins with baking papers, or non-stick spray.
- In a medium bowl place ground pecans, ground oats, flour, salt, spices, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk the sugar and maple syrup with the melted butter.
- Whisk in the eggs and milk.
- Slowly whisk in the dry mixture.
- Divide equally into the prepared muffin tins. Sprinkle a pinch of sugar on top and place a whole pecan on top.
- Bake for 28-30 minutes, or until top is golden and center is firm to the touch.
Notes
- Muffins will last in the fridge for a week in an airtight container, or the freezer for several months.
Maple Pecan Muffin Recipe
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.