Apple muffins can be light and fluffy or dense, crumbly, sweet and filled with fruit. These jumbo size Apple Spice Cake Muffins fall into the second category. They are almost fall apart moist and packed with apple bits, raisins and nuts. At first I was going to just call them Apple Spice Muffins, but since they are so sweet and satisfying I decided on Apple Spice Cake Muffins. They'd be good for breakfast or possibly dessert (maybe with a little whipped cream).
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Briefly Cooking the Apples
The interesting step in this recipe is that you very briefly cook the apples by putting them in the hot saucepan with the melted butter. The raisins and all of the wet ingredients are added to the saucepan with the apples. You then mix the dry ingredients separately before gently mixing everything together to make a pretty apple-heavy batter.
Jumbo Muffin Tin
These muffins are baked in a jumbo muffin tin which measures 3 inches in diameter. Though they are baked jumbo size, they're not really huge muffins. They just need more space to accommodate all the fruit and nuts. You can also bake them in regular size muffin tins. Just be sure to use liners or really grease the bottom because the muffins are sticky.
Apple Spice Cake Muffins Ingredient List
This is a long ingredient list but it's mainly because there is both butter and oil plus a lot of different spices. I actually use two kinds of flour as well -- a mix of bread flour and whole wheat, but you can use just one kind as long as the total amount is 140 grams. I've tested the muffins a few time and settled on the ratio of spices we like. I sometimes throw in ⅛ teaspoon of cardamom, but I didn't want the ingredient list to get any longer so it's optional. The pecans (or walnuts) are really good in these, are the raisins. If you are not a nut or raisin fan you can leave them out. My daughter made a batch without the raisins and said they were great.
Recipe
Jumbo Apple Spice Cake Muffins
Ingredients
Wet Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups peeled and chopped apples (from two medium( (6 oz after being chopped etc.)
- 4 tablespoons unsalted or salted butter, cut into chunks (56 grams)
- ¼ cup raisins
- ⅓ cup neutral oil (grapeseed)
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tablespoons yogurt or sour cream
Dry Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour or bread flour (140 grams)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon allspice
- ⅜ tsp salt
- ½ cup sugar (100 grams)
- ¼ cup tightly packed brown sugar (60 grams)
- ½ cup oats, slightly heaping, old fashioned or quick, (60 grams)
- ¼ cup chopped toasted pecans or walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F. Line 6 jumbo muffin cups with paper liners. If using regular size muffin tins, prepare about 10 of the cups.
- Begin melting the butter in a saucepan. When it's about halfway melted, add the apples and cook the apples and butter together for about a minute or until the butter is completely melted and apples are soft. Let cool briefly, then stir in the raisins, oil, egg, vanilla and yogurt (or sour cream).
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, spices both sugars and oats. Make sure everything is very evenly mixed. Add the pecans.
- Add the apple mixture to the flour mixture and stir until evenly blended.
- Divide between the muffin pans. Bake at 375 degrees F for about 25 minutes or until the muffins appear done and the internal temp is around 200-205. They will not rise high, but the tops should round just slightly. These are supposed to be dense and moist. Be sure to let them cool.
Anna says
I just used Honeycrisps, but Granny Smiths or a mix might be better. Honeycrisps have just been on sale lately.
Sue says
These sound so good! What kind of apples did you use?
The list of things I want to bake is getting so long!