Gluten-free Apple Streusel Muffins

Click to share this with your friends or family!

Tender, full of cinnamon apple flavor, and delicious, these gluten-free apple muffins with streusel topping should be on your baking list! I love them and hope you do too!

While my boys favorite gluten-free muffins are gluten-free Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, my favorite gluten-free muffins are these gluten-free Apple Streusel Muffins. These gluten-free apple muffins perfectly combine the flavors of cinnamon, butter, and apple and are topped with a cinnamon streusel topping. 

I enjoy eating these year-round, using whatever tart or semi-tart apples I can find at the store. My favorite apples to use are Pink Lady, McIntosh, and Braeburn apples.

Just like in my gluten-free Apple Puff Pancake recipe, you can use fresh apples or you can slice and freeze apples to pull out to use. If freezing apples for this recipe, just peel, dice, and measure out the 2 cups, put into a quart-size freezer bag with a bit of lemon juice, press out air, and freeze. When ready to use, let them thaw, discard the excess juice, and add to the recipe just like you would if they were fresh.

You can dice the apples however small you’d like. I prefer to dice pretty small, using my favorite paring knife. I just feel like dicing them small gets more of the flavor mixed throughout each bite, and you don’t have any weird texture issues like you might with large chunks.

Notes on ingredients and substitutions for these gluten-free apple muffins:

• Gluten-free flour: I tested it with gfJules with great results. You can buy gfJules gluten-free flour blend directly or from Amazon. Authentic Foods Multi-Blend,  Cup4Cup flour and King Arthur gluten-free flour blend should work well in these also.
• Xanthan gum:  If your flour blend doesn’t have xanthan or guar gum in it already, you’ll need to add it, as indicated in the recipe, otherwise your muffins will fall apart. I buy mine from Amazon and since you use so little, it lasts a long time!
• Buttermilk: Buttermilk makes these tender. If you can’t have dairy, you can make your own buttermilk substitute with dairy-free milk and lemon juice.
• Butter: If you can’t have dairy, you’ll want to use a melted non-dairy butter alternative or oil. Note that I haven’t tried this substitution, but I think it should work fine.

What is better than gluten-free apple cinnamon muffins? Topping them off with a buttery streusel topping! These are good muffins without the topping, but the topping is what makes them amazing!

Have more apples and cinnamon to use up? I recommend trying my gluten-free apple crisp recipe. It tastes great with tart apples, semi-tart apples or a mixture of apples. If you love streusel, you’ll love this gluten-free streusel apple pie recipe! Like pancakes? Make these gluten-free apple cinnamon pancakes!

I hope you’ll try these soon! I’d love to hear what your favorite muffin combo is too, if you’d like to leave a comment. 

If you make these and love them, please come back and give this recipe a 5 star rating in the recipe card! Feel free to comment with tips or to share any successful substitutions you made.

Gluten-free Apple Streusel Muffin Recipe:

Continue to Content

Yield: 21 muffins

Gluten-free Apple Streusel Muffins

Print

These gluten-free apple muffins perfectly combine the flavors of cinnamon, butter, and apple and are topped with a cinnamon streusel topping.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 17 minutes

Additional Time 10 minutes

Total Time 42 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups good gluten-free all-purpose flour blend*
• 1 tsp. xanthan gum**
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. allspice
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 2 cups peeled and finely diced tart apples

Topping:

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup good all-purpose gluten-free flour blend
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp. butter, melted

Instructions

1. Line 20 muffin cups with paper liners.
2. Preheat oven to 375°.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, salt, allspice, and cinnamon.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, melted butter, vanilla, and brown sugar. Whisk until sugar has dissolved into mixture.
5. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients mixture in the large bowl. Gently stir together with a rubber spatula. Add the diced apples and stir just until mixed in. Don't overmix.
6. Use a large cookie scoop or ice cream scoop to fill muffin tins about 3/4 full. Depending on the size of your scoop, you'll get anywhere from 18-21 muffins.

Topping:

1. In a small bowl, use a fork to stir together the brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Drizzle in the 2 tablespoons of melted butter and mix together with the fork. Use a tablespoon to sprinkle the streusel topping onto muffins, until they are all covered.
2. Bake at 375° for about 17 minutes. You can tell they are done when they you press on a muffin gently and the top of the muffin springs back.
3. Let cool in the pan about 5-10 minutes, then remove to finish cooling on a cooling rack. Store in a covered container at room temperature. These are best eaten the first two days as the topping starts to get a little mushy by day 3.

Notes

*I recommend using Gluten Free Mama's All-purpose Almond Flour Blend or gfJules Gluten-free Flour in my recipes.

**If using gfJules, or another flour with xanthan gum already in it, be sure to omit the xanthan gum called for in the recipe.

See blog post for other notes on ingredients and substitutions.

Recommended Products

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.

• 
  McCormick Gourmet All Natural Ground Jamaican Allspice, 1.5 oz
• 
  Kirkland Saigon Cinnamon 10.7 Oz Bottles( Pack of 2) - 21.4 Oz Total
• 
  Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract, 4 oz.
• 
  Favorite Paring Knife
• 
  OXO Good Grips Medium Cookie Scoop
• 
  Muffin Pan

Pin this to your Gluten-free Muffins Pinterest Board:

Happy Baking!

Click to share this with your friends or family!