When I’m looking to bake something quick, easy, and wholesome—I always rely on muffins. Banana muffins, bran muffins, or these apple cinnamon oatmeal cups are my top choices because they’re simple, relatively healthy, and adult + child approved. Preparing muffin batter is a no-fuss task and you can enjoy muffins right away, which is definitely a bonus when baking for or with kids. (By the way, here are many kid-friendly baking recipes.) These applesauce muffins join my top favorites and I know you’ll love them too!
Why You Will Love These Applesauce Muffins:
Recipe is quick & easy Muffins are satisfying, soft, & moist No mixer required Use convenient, ordinary ingredients Healthful & wholesome just like these healthy apple muffins No refined sugar Dairy free if using a dairy free milk Optional add-ins for texture and flavor (raisins, nuts, chopped apples)
By the way, if you’re looking for a more indulgent apple muffin, try these apple cinnamon muffins.
Recipe Testing Whole Wheat Applesauce Muffins
Well well well. What ended up as a fairly easy muffin recipe began as complicated mess of sticky flavorless muffins. I started testing this applesauce muffin recipe using the base of my blueberry oatmeal muffins. Adding applesauce did the batter no favors and the entire muffin tasted bland and gloppy (technical terms). I adore that recipe and now know that it’s best to leave it alone. So I turned to my whole wheat banana walnut muffins as a starting point. The batter includes oats as an add-in, so it’s less of an oatmeal muffin and more of a standard muffin with some oats in it—if that makes sense. I swapped applesauce for the mashed banana, added more oats, and slightly reduced the baking soda. (1 full teaspoon is simply not needed.) As it turns out, I think I prefer these applesauce muffins because I don’t always have brown & spotty bananas on hand. Convenience is key!
Key Ingredients in These Whole Wheat Applesauce Muffins
You also need cinnamon, baking powder & baking soda, salt, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract. Before baking, you can sprinkle the tops of the muffins with oats and/or coconut sugar or coarse sugar for a little crunch. I like adding it to pumpkin muffins, too. (Note in the photo below the melted coconut oil looks like ice water since not all of the oil had been melted—I melted it more after taking this photo.)
Best Applesauce To Use
The best applesauce to use for baking is typically unsweetened. In this recipe, you can use homemade or store-bought and the consistency doesn’t make a difference—thick, thin, smooth, or chunky. Applesauce with cinnamon is also a great choice, but if you don’t want too much cinnamon flavor, I would slightly reduce the cinnamon in the recipe. My best advice is to use whatever applesauce you enjoy eating! Imperative Success Tip: Make sure you grease the muffin liners before adding the batter or skip the liners and grease the muffin pan. This batter sticks to the liners, but greasing helps. After the muffins cool completely, they do not stick as much. The muffins above look like they have chocolate chips, don’t they? Chocolate chip lovers will be disappointed to learn those are raisins. HA! (Oh-so-good with raisins!)
Can I Add Apples?
Yes, apples are a wonderful choice as the add-in. See recipe note below.
