Gluten-free Apple Streusel Muffins
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 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:
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.
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
- Line 20 muffin cups with paper liners.
- Preheat oven to 375°.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, salt, allspice, and cinnamon.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, melted butter, vanilla, and brown sugar. Whisk until sugar has dissolved into mixture.
- 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.
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Pin this to your Gluten-free Muffins Pinterest Board:
Happy Baking!
Great recipe! I used Bob’s Red Mill 1 for 1 GF flour and had no problems with heavy/gummy texture. Streusel was fabulous…also made sure to take muffins out of the tin after 5 minutes to cool properly. Can’t find any fault with this, and I’m NEW to GF Baking!!
Will these freeze well??
Hello. I made these apple streusel muffins with Bob’s Red Mill 1to 1 baking flour. In place of sugar, I used 3/4 cup coconut sugar and 3/4 cup Swerve granulated. The muffins have a lovely flour like texture and are a moist bite as well.
I found you on Pinterest and now have you bookmarked.
I’m so glad you found my site through Pinterest and gave this recipe a try! Thanks for sharing your successful substitution too!
With this recipe can l use Maple Syrup instead of brown sugar?
I haven’t tried that yet, but feel free to give it a try and let me know!
does anyone have the nutrition facts for these muffins? i love them but i have to keep track of all of that stuff forbmyself
My daughter just found out that she has to go gluten free, I found this recipe on Pinterest and gave it a try. She fell in love with it. I am now going to make it again but as a loaf instead of muffins. Would love to see more of your gluten free recipes.
Thanks so much for your comment Kristine! How sweet of you to make these for your daughter. I’m so glad to hear that she loved them.
Make sure you click on the recipes tab at the top of my blog to see the rest of the recipes I have posted. More coming soon!
These muffins are great , I’m making them right now.
I used bob’s red mill gluten free all purpose baking flour and added a little more then the recipe calls for because they were rather gummy if not, and added less than 1/2 tsp baking powder so they would rise and they were fantastic!!!!
Thanks so much for the recipe!!
Good for you for playing with the recipe to make it work with the flour blend you had on hand. Your persistence paid off! Hope you enjoy them again and again! Last time I made these, I sadly forgot the baking soda completely and had to throw the whole batch out. I almost cried!
Please give me your gluten free all purpose flour blend recipe for the apple streusel muffins.
Thank you
Hi Elsie,
I recommend using Gluten free Mama’s All-purpose Almond blend.