Toffee Apple Muffins
These Toffee Apple Muffins have a brown sugar and apple muffin, topped with toffee buttercream and homemade toffee sauce.
Autumn is finally here, my absolute favourite season. This means it is time for delicious, yummy bakes perfect for getting cosy on the couch with a cup of tea and these Toffee Apple Muffins were made for this!
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How To Make Toffee Apple Muffins
To give the muffins a toffee flavour I used dark brown sugar instead of caster sugar, which gives the muffins a rich toffee flavour. You could also use light brown sugar which would give a slight toffee hint but wouldn’t be as strong as dark brown sugar.
The apples are also coated in brown sugar and baked into the muffins, meaning when you bite into them you get chunks of caramelly apple goodness. I cut the apples into chunks, but I didn’t want them all to be the same size, so I just chopped them roughly. That way when you bite into them there are different-sized chunks of apple.
Making muffins is slightly different compared with making cupcakes. Muffins don’t have any butter in them, instead, they use a tasteless oil like sunflower or vegetable oil.
Another difference is you need to mix all the wet ingredients together and all the dry ones before combining them together.
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I tend to add the wet ingredients to a jug, it just makes it much easier to measure them out. If you are using a bowl though, a handy tip to remember is that grams and millilitres are essentially the same weight. So, if the recipe calls for 150ml, if you weigh out 150g then this will be the same weight.
I whisk the sugar and flour together in a large bowl first, it doesn’t need to take too long just whisk long enough that both the sugar and flour are equally distributed before you add in the wet ingredients.
With all my muffin recipes I used these tulip muffin cases. I just love how they look. To distribute the mixture between them I used a small ice cream scoop. Each muffin case gets two scoops of mixture that way I know they are all roughly the same.
One similarity with cupcakes is that you can tell the muffins are baked when you gently press down on the top of them. If they spring back then they are ready, if you are left with a finger indentation mark then they aren’t. Pop them back into the oven for 3-4 minutes and repeat until they are ready.
Another way to tell if the muffins are ready or not is by using a cake tester. The only reservation I have about using one of these with the Toffee Apple Muffins is that if the skewer hits a piece of the apple then it won’t come out clean. Just remember this if you are using this method.
Leave the muffins to cool for 15-20 minutes in the muffin tray and then move them to a wire rack to cool fully.
How To Make Toffee Sauce
Making Toffee Sauce is slightly different to making caramel sauce. The toffee only uses four ingredients, muscovado sugar, butter, cream and black treacle.
The black treacle is super important and helps give the toffee sauce its toffee flavour. If you haven’t come across black treacle before, I use Lyle’s Black Treacle which comes in a red tin. Black treacle is the syrup made during the refining of sugar and has a strong slightly bitter flavour. Don’t worry though, it doesn’t make the toffee sauce taste bitter.
Treacle is the last ingredient to be added to your toffee mixture. Add the other three ingredients to a large saucepan and mix until the butter is completely melted, and the sugar has dissolved. You will know the sugar has dissolved when you run your spatula or spoon over the bottom of the pan it shouldn’t feel grainy.
You only need one tablespoon of black treacle in this sauce. It is pretty sticky so if you are finding it difficult to get it off the spoon, coat the spoon in a thin layer of oil before scooping up the black treacle. That way it will just slide off the spoon.
You need to let the sauce boil for 2-3 minutes. Remember and stir it occasionally so that it doesn’t burn until it turns a rich toffee colour.
Remove from the heat and add in the remaining double cream. The mixture will bubble, and spit so be careful and use a long-handled spoon or spatula. Stir the double cream in quickly to stop the mixture from solidifying and pour the sauce into a jar or container. Pop it into the fridge to cool.
This recipe does make slightly too much for the buttercream and drizzle on these muffins but making a smaller amount would also be too difficult.
Once the sauce has cooled you can use it for so many different things, you could add it to the top of sticky toffee pudding, use it on top of ice cream or just eat it with a spoon. I won’t judge you!
Putting it All Together
For the buttercream, I decided to add some delicious toffee sauce. I started by making American buttercream by beating together the icing sugar and butter. Remember, for buttercream you need to use unsalted butter. The kind that comes wrapped in foil, normally in blocks of 250g.
I then added in 3-4 tbsp of the toffee sauce and mixed until it was lovely and thick and creamy. If your buttercream is too thick add a tablespoon of milk and mix again.
The perfect consistency for buttercream, I find, is when it is thick so that when you scoop it up with your spatula and turn it upside down it doesn’t immediately fall from the spatula, but if you give it a gentle shake or two it will fall off.
I spooned a tablespoon of sauce onto the top of each muffin before piping on the buttercream. I finished it with another tablespoon of sauce and a dried apple slice.
Alternatives
You could make these Caramel Apple Muffins. Just use the recipe for my caramel sauce instead of the toffee sauce recipe.
Equipment
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Toffee Apple Muffins
Ingredients
To Make the Toffee Apple Muffins
- 150 ml Vegetable Oil
- 175 g Whole Milk
- 2 Large Eggs
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 250 g Self-Raising Flour
- 175 g Dark Brown Sugar
- 200 g Apples (peeled, cored and roughly chopped)
To Make the Toffee Sauce
- 200 g Light Muscovado Sugar
- 75 g Unsalted Butter
- 250 g Double Cream
- 1 tbsp Black Treacle
For the Buttercream
- 200 g Unsalted Butter
- 400 g Icing Sugar
- 3-4 tbsp Toffee Sauce
- 2-3 tbsp Whole Milk (optional)
To Decorate
- Dried Apple Pieces
Instructions
To Make the Toffee Apple Muffins
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan. Line a muffin tray with your muffin liners and leave to one side.
- Add the oil, whole milk, eggs and vanilla to a large bowl or jug and whisk until they are all combined. Leave to one side.
- In a separate bowl add the flour and sugar and mix until fully combined.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until the mixture is smooth and combined.
- Peel, core and roughly chop your apples into chunks. Add these to the mixture and mix until they are evenly distributed.
- Split the mixture between your 12 muffin liners.
- Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Once they have baked leave them to cool in the muffin tray for 15-20 minutes before moving them to a wire rack to cool fully.
To Make the Toffee Sauce
- Add the sugar, butter and half of the double cream to a large saucepan.
- Heat on a low/medium heat stirring constantly until the butter has completely melted and the sugar has dissolved.
- Stir in the black treacle and turn the heat up slightly so that the mixture is now boiling. Let the mixture boil for 3-4 minutes until it is a rich toffee colour. Remember and stir occasionally to stop the toffee from burning.
- Take the pan off the heat and beat in the remaining double cream. The mixture will start to bubble and spit so be careful.
- Pour the toffee sauce into a container or jar and pop it into the fridge to cool completely.
To Make the Buttercream
- Add the butter and sugar to a large bowl and mix together until it becomes thick and creamy.
- Add in 3-4 tbsp of the toffee sauce you made earlier. Mix these in, if the mixture is still too thick add in 1 tbsp of milk and beat again. Repeat until the buttercream is the desired consistency.
- Add a tablespoon of toffee sauce onto the top of the muffins, then pipe the buttercream on top. Finish by adding another tablespoon of toffee sauce and some dried apple pieces.
Notes
- These muffins will last for 3+ days in an airtight container.
Can you freeze any left over toffee sauce for later use if they is any left of course Thanks Carol
Yes of course, just let it cool completely before putting it into the freezer in an airtight container. It will keep for 3 months. Before you use it, defrost it fully in the fridge.