Easy Apple Muffins Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making some flavor-packed, delicious apple muffins. So let's get started. First off, set your oven to 400 Fahrenheit so it's nice and hot. And now you can either line your 12-cup muffin tin with papers or grease the wells. I have just a bit of prep work to do, and that is with my two apples. You'll want two large apples. They could be Granny Smith, Cortland, or Honeycrisp, like I'm using. Really, any of your varieties will work here. In the recipe, I call for the apples to be peeled, but it's actually optional. We've tested it both ways. And if you leave the skins on, you get a beautiful little flash of pink here and there, and the skin softens. But we're peeling them today because the boys don't like that. All muffins, which are quick breads, will have been originating in 19th century and beyond. Before that, there was no baking soda and no baking powder to puff these up easily. And of course, this is an American invention because we're using apples here, one of our favorite ingredients. You can either cut the flesh from the core or core the apples. You'll want 220 grams of apple, once cut. And for these giant ones, that is one apple. Give your apple a dice. It's okay, just cover it. I was just giving you a piece of apple. Okay. Yeah, okay. Bye. Well. They're cleaning out their closets right now with all the old clothes and Lachlan's playing dress up. Understandable. Transfer that to a bowl and set that aside. These apples have a lovely, crunchy streusel-like top. So let's make that, and then we can do the muffin batter. For the streusel topping, we're gonna combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl, starting with half a cup or 60 grams of all-purpose flour, a quarter cup of light brown sugar, 55 grams, a quarter cup of granulated sugar, that's 50 grams. And by the way, if you want these muffins to be a little less decadent, you can skip the streusel topping. They are still delicious. Or you could substitute it out for a lovely icing. Or you could have the icing on top of the streusel. Up to you. And half a teaspoon of cinnamon for some warming spice flavor. All right, my scale's done. Let's give that a little bit of a mix. Mix it up and break up the brown sugar lumps, if there are any. Over the dry ingredients, we're gonna pour three tablespoons or 43 grams of melted unsalted butter. Although honestly, salt would be delicious here too. Use a fork and mix that up. I want this combined but still clumpy. Mm, looks appetizing and smells delicious. Time to set that aside. Now in another medium bowl, we're gonna combine the dry ingredients for the batter, starting with two cups or 240 grams of all-purpose flour. Bam! Love using a scale. To puff things up, one and a quarter teaspoon of baking powder. By the way, if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes every week. Every once in a while, someone will comment, oh, I haven't seen your videos in years. Where have you been? And I was like, I've been posting the videos. You haven't seen them, sad. One and a half teaspoons of ground cinnamon. In here, I will say, of course you have choices. You could have a little bit of allspice, a little bit of nutmeg, a little bit of ginger. I think a quarter teaspoon of each would be nice. Did I mention cardamom? So good. You could also sub in pumpkin pie spice if desired. And for some contrast, half a teaspoon of salt. You know, you could also drizzle caramel on top of the muffins too. That would be good too. Grab a whisk. And maybe something else, link in the description box below. Over a hundred baking recipes, all of them delicious. Give this a good whisk. It's really easy to tell if you're whisking well when there's cinnamon or spices in. And it's interesting because a lot of times when you're making cakes, you'll see like a little divot or a couple divots randomly in the cake. Like, what happened? There might not be any baking powder in that area and it didn't puff up. So whisking's important. We're gonna take two tablespoons of the dry mixture and sprinkle that over our apples. And give them a toss too. This will help the apples kind of float in the mixture and not sink to the bottom. Set that aside. Also this aside. And now the wet ingredients. Now in a large bowl, we're gonna combine the wet ingredients. Starting with half a cup of room temperature butter. It should be nice and soft. So soft throughout, no hard core of butter in the middle. That of course is 113 grams. To the butter we're adding half a cup or 110 grams of light brown sugar. If you're using a measuring cup, pack it in. And we're also adding half a cup or 100 grams of granulated sugar. Our scale's done. So now we're gonna beat this on medium speed for about two minutes until it's nice and creamy. You could use a stand mixer to make this if you wanted. I do not recommend beating it by hand. Too much work. Two minutes later, my mixture is nice and fluffy. So it's time to add two eggs in so this has a little bit more structure. Add those in one at a time and mix in between. Egg number two. Mix that in as well. Nice and mixed. We're also adding in a teaspoon of vanilla for some extra flavor. Now we can combine the wet and the dry together. We're gonna add the flour mixture alternating with quarter cup of milk in three batches. So I'm gonna knock some of this down and scrape the bottom. Add that first third in. This will seem really thick and maybe even dry once everything is combined. However, our magical apples will release a lot of moisture so don't worry. Mixing on lowest setting. Just combine that flour. Add half of the milk. Another third of the flour. Don't wanna overmix your batter here so be careful. So I'm lifting the beaters out in between. The remaining milk and the remaining flour. Stopping here even though there's a ton of unmixed flour because I wanna finish this off by hand. Just scrape the bowl down and incorporate the remaining flour until you almost don't see any left. So mixing until almost combined. Now we can add the apples and just mix until they're nicely incorporated. Like most muffins, these are great make-ahead treats. They last for three days if stored in an airtight container or three months if you freeze them. My apples are nicely distributed so it's time to scoop them up. We're gonna add about a third of a cup of batter into each well. This recipe makes 12 muffins. This is working out really well. I highly recommend having a triggered scoop in your kitchen. It's a really good tool. I have a little batter left over so I'm gonna redistribute that as I wish. These look so good but don't forget the streusel topping we made. Give a nice sprinkle. It's probably about three tablespoons per muffin. Do your best to cover them and then just use the remaining streusel mixture to even things out. Just crawl that back into the wells. Just don't make a mess. I want these muffins to rise up and really have a tall, beautiful dome. We're gonna bake them at 400 Fahrenheit for 10 minutes, that initial flash of heat. Then we're gonna reduce to 350 and bake an additional 12 to 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. In you go. Out of the oven and cool enough to touch, these muffins smell. How do they smell? Great. They smell delicious. The difference between paper versus no paper, the ones in the paper rose a little bit nicer. The ones without have a darker caramelized edge, so choose the version you like best. And just like that, they're ready to enjoy. Mm. They're good. He's a very serious eater. Can I finish it? Yeah. It's such a nice combination of these juicy apples, a crisp, crunchy top, and a really soft muffin inside. Would you make this again? Yeah. What does it taste like? Apples. Very good. I hope you get a chance to make this delicious recipe, and if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button and check out my muffin playlist.