Gluten Free Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Tis the season of apples, pumpkins and earthy spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.  I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin; although the rest of the family is; so I do bake with it on occasion.  However, not today!

Apples were a plenty on my counter this morning but they were getting close to being over ripe and I do so hate to waste.  What to bake?  What to bake????  I had a strong craving for a really good muffin.  Sometimes there is nothing better than a really good muffin.  Now that Rob has gone gluten free, I decided I’d make these so he could eat them too.

Along with the apples, I also had apple cider in the fridge since I made Firefly Confections Apple Pie Caramels on the weekend.  I wanted to make sure the muffins had the full apple flavour and incorporated both into the recipe.  I had some coconut oil in the pantry that I had originally bought to make homemade chocolate magic shell but never got around to it so I thought I’d give it a go in this recipe.  Don’t worry, there isn’t a strong coconut flavour.  I also used buttermilk because I had some in the fridge but you could totally use regular milk.  The rest seemed like regular muffin ingredients.  The topping doesn’t need to be added if you don’t want to add the extra sugar, but it does make them really tasty.

Recipe: GF Apple Cinnamon Muffins

• 1/2 cup coconut oil melted
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I use Cup4Cup)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp apple pie spice (just mix cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice if you don’t have)
• 2 cups chopped apples skin on. (2 medium sized Gala apples)
• 1/2 cup apple cider
• 4 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Heat coconut oil until a liquid.  Warm milk in microwave for 30 seconds.  If the milk is cold, it will solidify the coconut oil.  Wisk together.
3. Wisk in the egg and vanilla.
4. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
5. Add in apples and apple cider until just mixed.
6. Using a ice-cream scoop, scoop into prepared muffin pan.
7. Mix together the melted butter, cinnamon and sugar together.  Top each muffin with a tablespoon of the mixture.
8. Bake until knife inserted comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
9. Cool and enjoy!

The subtle apple flavours in the batter plus the big pieces of apple make this a really lovely treat.  The GF flour doesn’t change the consistency/texture of the muffin and it makes me happy that I can make treats for my hubby and my best friend, who is also GF.

If you don’t want to make these GF you don’t have too.  You can just replace the flour with all-purpose flour.  You could even split it with whole wheat flour for something completely different.

Now don’t worry, I won’t make all my treat’s gluten free but I will let you know if you can

Thank for looking!