Fluffy, sweet and delicious Cherry Muffins. These little beauties are packed with fresh cherries, have zero refined sugars and will keep the kids (& you) going all afternoon. They pack well, travel well and freeze well. If you have cherries in your kitchen right now, get baking!
Cherry Muffins Recipe
In season, Cherries are one of the juiciest and sweetest fruits around. All of my kids love cherries as much as I do, there's never with a single one of them been a time I've had to encourage them to eat them in fact, I have to stop them eating them when I've bought them for a recipe. They're so moorish, one leads to another until suddenly, there's not more cherries.
So, with this in mind, Cherry Muffins have always been a bit of a no brainer to me. They're filling, they fit perfectly into lunch boxes and they can be frozen. What's not to love?
The recipe is a very basic muffin recipe and really, it's the basis for so many muffins. I like to add a little Almond extract to these muffins, it makes them taste a little bakewell-y and gives you a hint of Marzipan. Feel free to leave the Almond out if it's not your thing, or swap it for Vanilla if this appeals to you more.
Fresh Cherries
I have made these with both fresh cherries and frozen cherries and and can confidently tell you, you need to use fresh cherries for this recipe.
Cherries where I live can be super expensive and so I usually have frozen cherrie sin the freezer. They're so versatile and sweet, I use them in a whole load of things. But not these. The extra water content from frozen cherries makes these too dense, so I'd recommend you stick to fresh, when they're in season.
Storing Cherry Muffins
These freeze beautifully and will happily stay in your freezer for up to a month. If freezing, simply take them out to defrost them and leave them on the work top for a few hours. You can pop them into the microwave for 15 seconds to take the chill off them if you prefer.
If they're going into lunchboxes, you can pop them in frozen and by lunchtime they're defrosted, with the added benefit of keeping everything else in the box cool as well.
You can also keep these in an airtight container like this one, for up to 3 days. I don't recommend keeping these in the fridge and the temperature dries them out. Keeping them in a tin in a cupboard keep them deliciously moist.
Muffin Variations
These cherry muffins are perfect all on their own. They need nothing else to help them stand out. However...should you feel like mixing it up, you could also add these variations:
- Cocoa - Add 2 tablespoon of Cocoa to the mix when you're adding the flour and you have chocolate cherry muffins
- Blueberries - Add some fresh blueberries to the mix when you're adding the fresh cherries. You need to keep the weights the same, so take away from the weight of the cherries however much you add in Blueberries
- Coconut - Take away ½ cup of the flour and add ½ cup of shredded coconut for Coconut Cherry Muffins. These are sweeter and a little denser than the one's I've made here, but still yummy :)
More Clean Eating Muffin Recipes
- Carrot cake muffins
- Cheese and spinach muffins
- Banana lentil muffins
- Gingerbread muffins
- Chocolate muffins
How To Make Cherry Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 Large Eggs
- 1½ Cups Flour Einkorn, Buckwheat, Wholemeal
- ¾ Cup Butter Softened
- ¼ Cup Maple Syrup
- ¾ Cup Fresh Cherries Pitted, halved
- 1½ tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Almond extract
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 190°
- Line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cases
- In a large bowl, add the butter and maple syrup and fully combine until the mixture is fluffy and light
- Whisk in the eggs one at a time and combine lightly. Add the almond extract and combine
- Add the flour and baking powder and combine gently until just mixed, making sure you don't 'over mix' it
- Fold in the halved and pitted cherries, keeping a handful out to place on top of the muffins
- Divide the mixture evenly between the muffin cases, adding a couple of cherry halves to the top of each and bake for 12-15 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean
Recipe
Cherry Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 Large Eggs
- 1½ Cups Flour Einkorn, Buckwheat, Wholemeal
- ¾ Cup Butter Softened
- ¼ Cup Maple Syrup
- ¾ Cup Fresh Cherries Pitted, halved
- 1½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1 teaspoon Almond extract
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 190°
- Line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cases
- In a large bowl, add the butter and maple syrup and fully combine until the mixture is fluffy and light
- Whisk in the eggs one at a time and combine lightly. Add the almond extract and combine
- Add the flour and baking powder and combine gently until just mixed, making sure you don't 'over mix' it
- Fold in the halved and pitted cherries, keeping a handful out to place on top of the muffins
- Divide the mixture evenly between the muffin cases, adding a couple of cherry halves to the top of each and bake for 12-15 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean
