These apple muffins are the ultimate fall treat. They have a moist and tender crumb, a crunchy paleo streusel topping, and a burst of apple flavor!
Table of Contents
The perfect paleo apple muffin!
Love apple flavored treats? My apple cinnamon muffins are gluten-free, grain-free, and paleo-friendly, but you won’t miss anything in terms of taste or texture. They’re made with almond flour, shredded apple, coconut sugar, eggs, ground cinnamon, and vanilla extract, and topped with a paleo streusel topping that’s the perfect balance of sweet, salty, and nutty. Plus, they make your kitchen smell amazing!
Ingredient substitutions?
Unfortunately, I’m not sure how this recipe will work with different flours or how to substitute the eggs, sweetener, etc. If you try a substitution and it works out great, please leave a note in the comments so everyone can benefit from your baking prowess.
Tips on how to make these paleo apple muffins
- Use a scale to measure the dry ingredients! The most precise way to measure dry ingredients for a baking recipe is to use an accurate kitchen scale—there’s just too much variability when you rely on measuring cups to portion out ingredients for baking. That’s why I always include gram measurements in my recipe cards for baked goods—just hit the metric button in my recipe card below to convert to grams!
- Beat the eggs and coconut sugar well! Coconut sugar doesn’t dissolve easily in liquids so make sure you beat them with the eggs for a good 2 minutes. Don’t be lazy!
- Work quickly after the wet and dry ingredients are mixed! As soon as the dry and wet ingredients are combined in this muffin recipe, work quickly because the baking soda has been activated. If you dawdle, your muffins won’t rise as well in the oven!
- Gently press the streusel topping into the raw batter! This step ensures that the topping sticks to the muffin and doesn’t fall off after baking.
Ingredients
For the paleo “streusel” topping
- Whole raw pecans: I love the combination of chopped pecans, almonds, and shredded coconut, but feel free to change out the nuts and coconut depending on your preference. Walnuts work great, too!
- Whole raw almonds
- Unsweetened shredded coconut
- Coconut sugar or maple sugar In place of brown sugar, I like using coconut sugar or maple sugar for the crumb toppings.
- Ground cinnamon
- Ground cardamom or ground nutmeg
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt: I love the contrast of sweet and salty so this streusel ingredient is essential in my opinion. If you are using a fine salt, table salt, or even Morton’s kosher salt please decrease the amount of salt in half.
- Melted refined coconut oil:To keep this recipe dairy-free, I substitute butter with refined coconut oil. Feel free to use ghee if you’d like!
For the apple muffins
- Super-fine blanched almond flour: To keep this muffin recipe paleo and grain-free, I like to use almond flour as my substitute for all purpose flour. If you have a nut allergy, you can try using sunflower seed flour but the muffins will turn green because it will react with the baking soda.
- Shredded apple: Any variety of apple should work in this apple muffins recipe—I love using Fuji, Honeycrisp, Braeburn, Granny Smith, or Gala apples.
- Eggs: The eggs are needed for the structure of the muffins so you can’t replace them in this recipe.
- Coconut sugar: I prefer making these muffins with coconut sugar because it tastes the most like brown sugar. Honey will work but you will have to decrease the amount because it is sweeter than coconut sugar and adds more liquid.
- Ground cinnamon
- Vanilla extract
- Baking soda: In place of baking powder, I use baking soda + cream of tartar.
- Cream of tartar: This powdered acid reacts with baking soda to help the muffins rise. If you don’t have any cream of tartar, you can use 1 teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice and mix that in with the wet ingredients.
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt
How to make apple muffins with paleo streusel topping
Make the paleo streusel topping
Finely chop the pecans and almonds and transfer them to a medium bowl. (If you don’t want to chop them by hand, you can toss them into a mini food processor and blitz them!)
Add the shredded coconut, coconut sugar, cinnamon, kosher salt, and cardamom.
Pour in the melted refined coconut oil and stir well to combine. Set aside the topping mixture.
Heat the oven and prepare the muffin tin
Heat the oven to 350°F degrees with the rack in the middle. While the oven is heating, line a standard muffin pan with parchment paper liners or grease well with ghee or coconut oil.
Make the apple muffins
In a medium bowl, combine the almond flour, ground cinnamon, baking soda, cream of tartar, and kosher salt.
Whisk it all together.
In a separate large bowl, use an electric mixer or whisk to combine the coconut sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix until the sugar has dissolved.
Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ingredients and use a hand mixer or whisk to blend until well combined. Next, dump in the shredded apple.
Fold the shredded apple into the batter until well mixed.
Divide the batter evenly into each muffin liner. I use a #20 disher (3 tablespoons) to scoop the batter.
Add a sprinkling of paleo streusel on top of each muffin (about 1 tablespoon).
Use your fingers to press the topping gently into the batter so it doesn’t fall off after baking.
Bake the muffins in the oven at 350°F for 22 to 25 minutes, rotating the muffin tray at the halfway mark.
The muffins are done cooking when the toppings are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Remove the muffins from the oven and transfer the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.
Enjoy!
How to store apple muffins
You can store the muffins in a sealed airtight container in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for up to 4 months. When you want to eat a frozen muffin, you can thaw it overnight in the fridge or microwave it for 30 seconds straight from the freezer. If you’re using a countertop toaster oven to heat up a muffin, I would still thaw it first and then bake at 300°F for ~5 minutes or until heated through and the topping gets crunchy again.
More fall Paleo dessert recipes
Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013), Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017), and Nom Nom Paleo: Let’s Go! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2022).
Apple Muffins with Paleo Streusel Topping
Ingredients
Paleo Streusel Topping
- ¼ cup whole raw pecans
- ¼ cup whole raw almonds
- ¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- ¼ cup coconut sugar or maple sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (use ¼ teaspoon salt if using fine grain salt)
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom or ground nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons melted refined coconut oil or melted ghee
Apple Muffins
- 2½ cups finely ground almond flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ¼ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (use ⅛ teaspoon salt if using fine grain salt)
- ¾ cup coconut sugar or maple sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup shredded and peeled apple (grated on the large holes on a box grater)
Instructions
Make the paleo streusel topping
- Finely chop the pecans and almonds and transfer them to a medium bowl. Add the shredded coconut, coconut sugar, ground cinnamon, kosher salt, and cardamom. Pour in the melted refined coconut oil and stir well to combine. Set aside the topping mixture.
Make the apple muffins
- Heat the oven to 350°F degrees with the rack in the middle. While the oven is heating, line a standard muffin pan with parchment paper liners or grease well with ghee or coconut oil.
- In a medium bowl, combine the almond flour, ground cinnamon, baking soda, cream of tartar, and kosher salt. Whisk it all together.
- In a separate large bowl, use an electric mixer or whisk to combine the coconut sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix until the sugar has dissolved.
- Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ingredients and use a hand mixer or whisk to blend until well combined. Next, use a spatula to fold the shredded apple into the batter until well mixed.
- Divide the batter evenly into each muffin liner. I use a #20 disher (3 tablespoons) to scoop the batter.
- Add a sprinkling of paleo streusel on top of each muffin (about a tablespoon). Use your fingers to press the topping gently into the batter so it doesn't fall off after baking.
- Bake the muffins in the oven at 350°F for 22 to 25 minutes, rotating the muffin tray at the halfway mark. The muffins are done cooking when the toppings are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Remove the muffins from the oven and transfer the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.
Video
Notes
- The streusel topping can be made ahead of time and stored in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 4 days or frozen for up to 4 months.
- Use a scale to measure the dry ingredients! The most precise way to measure dry ingredients for a baking recipe is to use an accurate kitchen scale—there’s just too much variability when you rely on measuring cups to portion out ingredients for baking. That’s why I always include gram measurements in my recipe cards for baked goods—just hit the metric button to convert to grams!
- Beat the eggs and coconut sugar well! Coconut sugar doesn’t dissolve easily in liquids so make sure you beat them with the eggs for a good 2 minutes. Don’t be lazy!
- Work quickly after the wet and dry ingredients are mixed! As soon as the dry and wet ingredients are combined in this muffin recipe, work quickly because the baking soda has been activated. If you dawdle, your muffins won’t rise as well in the oven!
- Gently press the streusel topping into the raw batter! This step ensures that the topping sticks to the muffin and doesn’t fall off after baking.
- Storage: You can store the muffins in a sealed airtight container in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for 4 months. When you want to eat a frozen muffin, you can thaw it overnight in the fridge or microwave it for 30 seconds straight from the freezer. If you’re using a countertop toaster oven to heat up a muffin, I would still thaw it first and then bake at 300°F for ~5 minutes or until heated through and the topping gets crunchy again.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
great muffins! absolutely delicious! def recommend it!
nom nom yum yum
I so wish I could include a photo-these muffins are SO DELICIOUS. I added allspice and used both cardamom and nutmeg in addition to the cinnamon. I used date sugar and they’re gorgeous, and soooooo delicious.
I made these muffins today and they smell amazing! However, the centers of my muffins sunk in for some reason. (All my ingredients were new, and I didn’t wait too long after mixing the wet and dry ingredients).
Hmmm…I’m not sure what went wrong. Did you use a scale to measure the dry ingredients by weight? Measuring cups aren’t super accurate and can lead to lower or higher amounts.
I made these for the monthly challenge and thought they were delicious! Love the flavor and the crunchy topping is perfect. Will definitely make these again!
Delicious, great texture and crumb. My whole family gave them a Big Thumbs Up!
Thank You!