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A family favorite fall apple muffin recipe – apple crumb muffins made with applesauce and brown sugar crumb topping. Every time we make these spice muffins, we get tons of compliments! Made with everyday ingredients from your pantry!
How many times have I said that muffins are my love language?!
It’s 100% possible to have a food love language. Ribs and mashed potatoes would be another top contender.
I think I love muffins so much because in my book they are an anytime food. Breakfast. Morning snack. Afternoon snack. Dessert. It covers all the bases!
We’ve been swimming in muffin land since I started working on this recipe. For almost every recipe I’ll make a regular batch and a gluten free batch. Then I was testing out different crumb toppings.. 48 muffins later we have the perfect apple muffins with crumb topping!
Total Time Required
- 10 minutes to make the batter
- 7 minutes at 425ºF
- 12-14 minutes at 350ºF
- 10 minutes to cool
There is no way Ryan and I can consume all of the food I make & test, so a ton of it goes to work with Ryan on a pretty regular basis.
But this week I dropped some muffins off at our church and they were a bit hit! I should make that a regular thing.
Do I have to use unsweetened applesauce?
No. That’s what I choose to use, but you could use regular applesauce or even cinnamon applesauce. I wouldn’t suggest using chunky applesauce as it will change the texture of the muffins.
Do I have to put the crumble on top?
Nope! Crumble is gooooood, but sometimes I want a less sweet muffin so skip the crumble if you want to! The baking time will be about the same.
Why should I bake the muffins at 425ºF for 7 minutes then turn the temperature down to 350ºF?
Baking the muffins at an initial higher temperature helps the muffins rise quickly, creating more of a domed muffin top – which everyone loves!
How to freeze apple muffins
Allow the muffins to cool completely. I like to wrap two muffins together (the bottoms of the muffins touching) in plastic wrap, then place all the wrapped bundles in a ziplock bag.
To thaw, either let them come to room temperature on the counter or place as many as you need in the microwave for 15 second intervals.
More apple recipes
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Applesauce Crumb Muffins
Equipment
Ingredients
Muffins
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs
Crumb Topping
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 stick unsalted butter, melted, 1/2 cup
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Line a regular sized muffin pan with liners.
- Make the crumb topping: In a small mixing bowl combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter. Mix together with a fork until crumbly and wet. Set aside.
- Make the muffins: In a smaller mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- In a separate larger mixing bowl, combine the applesauce, brown sugar, and vegetable oil, whisk together. Add in the eggs, whisk again. Using a spatula, gently mix in the dry ingredients until just combined.
- Fill each muffin cup almost to the top. The 12 muffin cups will be full, but that’s good! Using your fingers, crumble a generous amount of topping on each muffins.
- Bake at 425ºF for 7 minutes. Then keeping the muffins in the oven, turn the oven down to 350ºF and bake for 12-14 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Allow the muffins to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the muffin pan. Once the muffins cool, you can add a powdered sugar glaze (powdered sugar + milk) if you’d like!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclosure
All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.
Turned out great
I used King Arthur Gluten Free flour, homemade applesauce and Apple cider for the glaze.
I love the king arthur GF flour!
This recipe is great! The first time we made it we added chopped pieces of candied ginger and chopped frozen apple.
Since then I’ve had to go gluten free, so this time I blended GF oats in a blender so that it was about half oat flour half rolled oats, and substituted this for the flour. Came out great! a little crumbly, but moist and delicious!
So glad you tried it out Theresa!
Oh my heavens! These were amazing.
These wew so good with gluten free flour! I will be making them again and again! Thank you!
I love these!! Top is nice and crunchy and the inside is tender and mildly sweet. Perfect crunch & sweetness. Thank you !!
I am making these muffins to take to a neighbor. I have Peach/Mango applesauce cups left over from my granddaughter’s last visit before the Pandemic. They have sugar. Do you recommend reducing the amount of sugar? THANKS
Hi Kani! I would follow the recipe as is, don’t reduce the amount of sugar!
Does the batter for these muffins refrigerate over night ok?
Hi Rebecca, I haven’t tried that myself.
This is such an easy recipe! Thank you for sharing. I ended up making mini muffins for a quick sweet fix anytime.
For mini muffins: I used liners and a non-stick 24 mini muffin pan.
Yield: 36 mini muffins.
I baked them for 5min at 425 deg. F and then 6 to 7 min at 350 deg. F. I did not remove the muffins after the initial 5 min. I just adjusted the oven temperature as per recipe. I also have a regular (non-convection) oven.
The results: moist mini muffins with a nice dome and crispy crumble. I drizzled some glaze once cooled and ate about 5 of them in one sitting. :)
Looking at this recipe is great but would like to know how many calories for each muffin. Thank u. Connie
I made homemade applesauce with raisins and cinnamon. Do I need to reduce the sugar?