Nothing says I love you on Valentine’s Day like a house filled with the aromas of baked apples, cinnamon, vanilla and sugar. I know that Valentine’s Day is usually a chocolate affair, and believe you-me I L-O-V-E chocolate, but these muffins are the perfect dessert to share with your loved ones on this day of sweets, love, and valentines.
These amazing vegan apple crumble muffins are infused with cinammon, sugar, hints of maple syrup, vanilla and apple. They are slightly moist, soft and the flavours seems to linger in your mouth after every bight. I topped them off with a slightly crunchy, buttery, cinnamon sugar crumble that contrasts the apple infused muffin perfectly .
Not convinced yet? These are a lot better for you than your average muffin using only 3 tbsp of heart healthy coconut oil in all 12 muffins (*can easily sub for another light-tasting oil). I skimmed way back on the sugar as well – only 1/2 cup in the entire pan (*plus a titch more sugar and oil for the crumble topping of course). I’ve made this recipe a couple times now to ensure that these are just right – my biggest pet peeve with healthier baked goods is the resulting gummy, flavourless dessert. I guarantee that these might just blow your and your loved ones’ socks right off 😉
Plus, these muffins come with a story…
This past weekend I was in Monschau, Germany with J and his wonderful family. We had a fantastic time hiking, strolling around the old streets and looking in the numerous shops filled with antiques, nik-naks and German goodies. Plus, we enjoyed a lot of time relaxing, swimming, catching up on reading and watching the beginnings of the Olympics. It seemed like everywhere we went they were advertising the infamous German “Apfelstrudel”.
The Germans do apple desserts very well and they seem to put apples in so many of their desserts from donuts to tarts to cakes. On my way home I was brainstorming how I could turn one of these apple German delicacies into a healthier, vegan form. I have been planning on making a cinammon sugar cake for a while now… and one thing led to another and these vegan apple crumble muffins came to be. Let’s just say that when J came home from work the other day, the scent of cinammon and sugar from these muffins hit him right when he walked through the door – can you think of any better way to greet your loved one? (haha, rhetorically speaking…) 😀
These vegan apple crumble muffins taste best if you leave them to sit for a couple hours (if you can :p ) after taking them out of the oven to allow the flavours in the muffins to fully develop. They might just even taste better the next day, meaning you should probably go and bake these up right about now so they will be ready in time for tomorrow! ;D
Wishing you and all your loved ones a wonderful Valentine’s Day filled with lots of love, pretty pink things and scrumptious baked goods from my kitchen to yours ❤
Apple Crumble Muffins (Vegan)
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Author: Ceara
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: German
Serves: 12
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups flour (I used one cup spelt, one cup white whole wheat)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp sea salt
Wet Ingredients
- ½ cup plus 2 tbsp milk (*of choice - I used cashew)
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (*or white vinegar)
- ½ cup cane sugar or unpacked brown sugar (*plus extra for sprinkling on the bottom of the pan)
- 2 tbsp maple syrup (*or honey)
- 1 cup applesauce (*I prefer unsweetened)
- 1 grated peeled apple (*or cut into tiny pieces)
- 3 tbsp melted coconut oil (*or any light tasting oil such as canola, vegetable...)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1½ tsp cinnamon (*plus extra for sprinkling on the bottom of the pan)
Crumble
- 4 tbsp flour
- 1 tbsp oats
- 2 tbsp cane sugar
- 2 tbsp solid state coconut oil (*or margarine, butter etc...)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ - 1 tbsp applesauce (*optional, if needed see recipe)
Directions
- Pre-heat oven to 375f or 190c.
- Place milk and vinegar together in a large sized bowl. Stir and leave for a couple minutes while you prepare the dry ingredients (this makes a buttermilk). We will come back to this in the third step.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt to a medium sized bowl.
- Melt the coconut oil if it is not already in a liquid state. Add the remaining "wet" ingredients (sugar, maple syrup, applesauce, apple, vanilla, cinammon, coconut oil) into the large sized bowl to the milk and vinegar mixture. Whisk together until everything is well mixed.
- Mix the dry ingredients together so that the baking powder, soda, salt and flour are evenly distributed. Slowly add to the wet ingredients. Carefully fold the wet over the dry ingredients until they are just mixed together. Make sure not to over-mix to ensure a soft muffin.
- In the medium sized bowl, where you mixed your dry ingredients, add the crumble ingredients and mash them together using a fork until you get a crumbly, slightly wet texture. Add a titch more flour or oil/applesauce if mixture is too wet/dry (I added applesauce to avoid adding extra oil).
- Grease your muffin pan using a non-stick cooking spray or coconut oil. Sprinkle cinammon and sugar on the bottom of the pan. Scoop batter into muffin tins (about 2 heaping tbsp in each). Sprinkle streusel on top. Pop in the oven for about 17 - 22 minutes for muffins or about 38 - 45 minutes for a cake in a square pan. Take out of the oven once a toothpick is almost clean and the edges of the muffins are a slight golden brown. Let sit in the pan for about 30 minutes until they have cooled down. Devour 😀
Notes
Adjust cinnamon or vanilla to taste. If very sensitive to vanilla or cinnamon flavor reduce to 1 tsp of vanilla and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Make sure to leave the muffins in the pan until they have fully cooled down. Muffins taste best after leaving them to sit for a couple of hours to allow the flavors to fully develop.
Nutrition Information
Calories: 2449 Fat: 75g Saturated fat: 62g Unsaturated fat: 8g Trans fat: 0g Carbohydrates: 410g Sugar: 168g Sodium: 3797mg Fiber: 19g Protein: 37g Cholesterol: 12mg
12 comments
I just made these and perhaps I didn’t cook them long enough but the bottom is so wet. I used gluten free flour so that may have had something to do with it. I thought they would be crunchy on the bottom with the sugar there. Any suggestions?
For the crumble can I replace the can sugar with confectionary sugat or any suggestions?
These are amazing. It is hard to find recipes for fluffy vegan baked goods! But these are perfect. Only downside is very addictive :p
Thank you for the kind words, Sam! Happy you enjoyed the muffins 😀
Girl, you are a witch or something!! These muffins are freakin magic! Another winner, everything I make using your recipes becomes my new favorite! I love the ingredients you use, always SO flavorful.
Yay!! So happy you enjoyed the muffins 🙂 Thank you for the kind words!!
We just took them out of the oven and while they look great, when we tasted some of the crumble we realized it doesn’t have sugar in the crumble and could really use it! Tasted just like flour. I re-read the ingredient list and don’t see it on the list for the crumble ingredients? Is this right?
Oh my sweet goodness, these are so delicious! I gave them a shot as I was looking for a healthy breakfast and stumbled upon them, I love (almost) everything with cinnamon and apple, didn’t expect them to taste like much but boy was I wrong!
They were moist, tender, smelled absolutely divine, tasted even better and even my very picky colleagues loved them.
Am now making a cake out of the batter, instead of muffins, my kitchen smells like Apfelstrudel. 🙂
So happy you enjoyed the muffins, Yvonne!! <3 Thank you for taking the time to leave your kind comment and feedback 🙂
Can totally see this as a breakfast or a snack and I love it! I’m sure if the apples are ripe enough the skimmed down sugar makes no difference.
Thanks Shikha for your sweet words 😀 Somehow with the super ripe apple this cake is so sweet – I served it to friends and they even commented on how sweet it is!
These are great! I had to improvise a couple ingredients and it still worked very well. I only had 1/2 cup of applesauce, so I got creative and added oat milk yogurt! And I ran out of cinnamon and used apple pie spice instead. I also subbed brown sugar for the cane sugar when making the crumble. Love these muffins!