Blackberry And Apple Muffins {With A Crumble Topping}

Crumbly, sweet Blackberry and Apple Muffins. These delicious muffins are sweetened with maple syrup and apple sauce and they make a perfect afternoon pick me up or lunchbox filler.

Blackberry And Apple Muffins

Blackberry season where I am falls around August and September and means these are most often made in my kitchen when the weather can be starting to get a bit chiller, so these remind me of Fall and the change in seasons. Seasonal fruit is something I try to use in baking, it's cheaper, sweeter and plentiful.

I really like using fresh fruit in muffins. You need less sugars as the fruit adds to the sweetness, and using seasonal fruit means the fruits at it's sweetest.

I've used apple sauce in these muffins but the star of the show's the blackberries. Buy them in season and they'll be sweet and juicy or better still, grow your own if you can. We have a few Blackberry bushes in the garden and while some years are better then others, this year isn't quite as good as last year (less sunshine) but generally you can get a good crop. And of course, you can always buy then at the shops :)

Making your own apple sauce is really very easy. You can buy pre made apple sauce at the shops and while I have seen Clean apple sauce, they're not easy to find. All of the ones in my local supermarkets are not Clean, and so I just make my own if I'm using it for baking. Use the sweetest apples you can find, and you'll need to peel, core and dice it before you stew it. I don't add any maple syrup to the apple sauce as it's going into the muffin mix which is sweet enough!

Fruity Muffins

I leave the blackberries whole, and the apples are diced into small pieces, and so you end up with a yummy whole pieces of fruit in these muffins. If you're making these for very little ones, feel free to chop the blackberries up really small, but I wouldn't recommend blending them as it makes the mixture too wet.

As much as I love frozen fruit and it works really well in many recipes, it doesn't work well in muffins. The water content is too much, and no one likes soggy muffins!

You can also swap the blackberries out for other fruit. Raspberries would work well as would blueberries.

Crumble Topping

The crumble topping on these muffins turns them into something special. I've used a little coconut sugar, which while is better than white sugar because it undergoes less processing, is still something I only use occasionally. With these though, it really adds a good flavor to the crumble and so since these are packed with fresh fruit, I ignore the small amount of coconut sugar for these.

If you want to leave out the crumble topping to avoid the coconut sugar, simply follow the main muffin recipe and bake as usual without the topping.

More Clean Eating Muffins

• Clean eating carrot cake muffins
• Cherry muffins
• Gingerbread muffins
• Banana lentil muffins
• Chocolate banana oatmeal muffins

How To Store These Muffins

Once these muffins are cooked and cooled down, you can store them in an airtight container and they'll be good for 3-4 days. In fact, if these are left un til the following day the flavor seems to develop more and they're even yummier, although these rarely make it until the next day in our house :)

How To Make Blackberry And Apple Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Blackberries Fresh
• 1 Cup + 2 tbsp Flour Wholemeal
• 2 tbsp Baking powder
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1 Medium Egg
• 2 tbsp Maple syrup Or honey
• 1 tbsp Olive oil Or butter
• 1 Apple Peeled, cored and diced
• 3 tbsp Water For the apples to stew
• 4 tbsp Milk Dairy or non dairy

Instructions

• Heat the oven to 190° and line a muffin tin with muffin cases
• In a small pan dice the apple into small cubes and add the water to the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes until the apple is fully cooked through.
• In a large bowl, mix the flour and baking powder and set to one side
• In another bowl, combine the maple syrup, egg, vanilla, oil and milk and combine well
• Add the apple sauce mixture to the wet mix bowl. Fold the flour into the wet mixture and combine well. Fold the blackberries in whole, saving one blackberry for the top of each muffin
• Make the crumble mix: Combine the oats and coconut sugar, and then rub the diced butter into it to create a crumble
• Divide the muffin mixture into the muffin cases and add a little crumble topping to each muffin
• Bake for 12-15 minutes until the muffins are cooked through and golden on top
• Allow to cool, then eat :)

Blackberry And Apple Muffins Recipe