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These Apple Cider Doughnut Muffins taste like an apple cider doughnut but are in muffin form. They’re super tall and delicious with a crispy streusel cinnamon sugar topping. These doughnuts pair exceptionally well with a savory breakfast such as chilaquiles, or my irresistible breakfast burritos.
Ingredients for apple cider muffins
- Apple sauce – The apple sauce adds a really delicious crumb and moisture to these muffins.
- Neutral oil – I love muffins with oil. It adds a lightness and moisture that just can’t be achieved with butter. My favorite neutral oil is avocado oil.
- Spices – These muffins have cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. This adds that perfect apple-spice flavor.
Please see recipe card for the rest of the ingredients!
How to Make Apple Cider Doughnut Muffins
- Whisk together the apple sauce, white sugar, neutral oil, eggs and vanilla together.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and kosher salt. Pour the wet into the dry ingredients and mix just until you no longer see any speckles of flour.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to stand at room temperature for 20 minutes. I find that resting the batter like this really creates beautifully domed muffins.
- Meanwhile, make the streusel topping. Mix together the flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt together. And then mix in the cold butter, pressing it with your fingers. Mix it throughout the flour mixture until they’re are teeny tiny beads of butter.
- Divide the batter amongst the muffin tin cavities. Top each muffin with a handful of streusel topping.
- Transfer to the oven to bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then pop the muffins out and transfer to a cooling rack.
Tips and Tricks
- These muffins are nearly fool-proof but I will say that resting the batter for 20 minutes is super important in resulting that bakery-like, beautiful muffin. If you skip it, know that they won’t be as perfectly domed and pretty.
- Can I make these ahead: Yes! You’re welcome to make the batter up to a one day in advance, cover with plastic wrap and transfer to the fridge. Bake them the next morning!
Recipe FAQs
Why don’t these apple cider muffins have apple cider in them?
This is the most common question and I’ll say I tried it with apple cider but it has too much water content. They also didn’t taste anything like apple cider. These have the flavors of an apple cider doughnut without using apple cider at all.
Can I use pumpkin instead of apple sauce?
You know that’s a good question and it will probably work but I just haven’t tested them!
Recipes to Serve with these Muffins!
- Cranberry Cake
- Salted Honey Parker House Rolls
- Homemade Apple Pie
- Cozy Beef Stew
- Creamy Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Apple Cider Doughnut Muffins
These Apple Cider Doughnut Muffins taste like an apple cider doughnut but are in muffin form. They’re super tall and delicious with a crispy streusel cinnamon sugar topping.
Ingredients
Muffins:
- 1 1/4 cups apple sauce, (unsweetened or sweetened are both fine!)
- 1 1/4 cup white sugar, (250g)
- 1/2 cup neutral oil, (such as grapeseed, avocado or canola)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, (240g)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Streusel:
- 1/3 cups all-purpose flour, (40g)
- 2 tablespoons white sugar, (25g)
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes (28.5g)
Instructions
To Make the Muffins:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the apple sauce, white sugar, neutral oil, eggs and vanilla.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and kosher salt. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix just until combined, being sure not to over mix because this will cause tough muffins. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to stand for 20 minutes. I find that this is the key to super tall, gorgeous muffins.
To Make the Streusel Topping:
- Mix together the flour, white sugar, cinnamon and pinch of salt together. Add the butter and mix it together with your fingers. It should have teeny bits of butter throughout.
- Spray your muffin tin with cooking spray, if needed (I didn’t need it) and divide the batter amongst the 12 muffin cavities. Top it with a handful of the streusel topping and then transfer to the oven to bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
Notes
Tips and Tricks
- These muffins work with sweetened and unsweetened apple sauce. I’ve tried either and both are delicious. Obviously one is sweeter than the other 🙂
- These muffins are nearly fool-proof but I will say that resting the batter for 20 minutes is super important in resulting that bakery-like, beautiful muffin. If you skip it, know that they won’t be as perfectly domed and pretty.
- Can I make these ahead: Yes! You’re welcome to make the batter up to a one day in advance, cover with plastic wrap and transfer to the fridge. Bake them the next morning!
Nutrition
Calories: 198kcal | Carbohydrates: 47g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 204mg | Potassium: 79mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 26g | Vitamin A: 70IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 18mg | Iron: 2mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this Recipe? Please Rate & comment below!
Made these today (with sweetened apple sauce) and my family LOVES them! They are absolutely delicious. Thank you!! Oh
LOVE! I love apple cider donuts but can’t get them near me so I was excited to give these a try. They are sooo good and satisfy my donut craving. Super moist and fluffy! My husband is usually kinda meh about baked goods in the morning but even he loves these. I used sweetened apple sauce 🙂
wonderful to hear!
Made these following the original recipe & they were amazing. also made a version where I used pumpkin in place of the applesauce and they came out great.
wow love to hear this! the pumpkin version sounds delicious!
PLEASE CHANGE THE RECIPE TO SAY “UNSWEETENED APPLE SAUCE” ! I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO SCROLL THROUGH THE COMMENTS TO SEE THIS EVERY TIME I WANT TO MAKE THESE ! MANY THANKS !
these were great – added a bit of leftover apple syrup I had from tarte tatin into the batter & used ginger instead of nutmeg since I was out. perfect domes, fantastic texture & taste.
Made these a few days ago and they were bomb! Moist and not overly sweet. I already ate 5 of the 12 I’m making them again this weekend for my friends birthday! I used regular applesauce because the recipe did not clearly indicate wether to use sweetened or unsweetened ♀️
wonderful! i used unsweetened apple sauce from mott’s. i’ll specify in the recipe. glad they worked out 🙂
These were delicious!!
I followed the recipe exactly; next time I’ll add a little more cinnamon. *a personal preference
Thanks for this great recipe.
wonderful to hear! yay!
I don’t see any Apple cider listed in the ingredients, wouldn’t these just be Applesauce muffins?
they taste like apple cider doughnuts. zero apple cider tho! 🙂
I was wondering the exact same thing. Joy!
These look SO good! Do you think I’d have luck using a “cup for cup” gluten free flour?
I just made using King Arthur GF flour and they were delicious!
Update! So I made these this morning using the Bob’s Red Mill GF flour and they were SO delicious! They didn’t get quite as tall as the pics despite letting them rest, so I’m not sure if it was because of the flour mix or that I put them in liners vs directly in the pan, but it didn’t matter because they were still SO yummy and moist! Will definitely be making these often!
Should we use regular applesauce or unsweetened?
i used unsweetened mott’s apple sauce! 🙂