Gingerbread Muffins - Celebrating Sweets (2024)

4.67 from 6 votes

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes minutes

Author: Allison – Celebrating Sweets

Muffins:

• ▢ 2 cups all purpose flour
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon salt
• ▢ 2½ teaspoons ground ginger
• ▢ 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ▢ ⅔ cup brown sugar, packed
• ▢ ⅓ cup unsulphured molasses
• ▢ ½ cup vegetable or canola oil
• ▢ ¼ cup applesauce
• ▢ 1 large egg
• ▢ ½ cup milk
• ▢ 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 tablspoons granulated sugar, for sprinkling on top, optional

Lemon icing (optional):

• ▢ ¾ cup powdered sugar
• ▢ 1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Muffins:

• Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease or line a 12-cup muffin pan.

• In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

• In a large bowl, whisk brown sugar, molasses, oil, and applesauce. Whisk in egg, milk, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until no streaks of flour remain, be careful not to overmix.

• Divide the batter between 12 muffin cups (I use an ice cream scoop). If desired, sprinkle the top of each muffin with a little granulated sugar.

• Bake for 20-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for 5-10 minutes, then remove each muffin and place directly on the rack to cool completely.

Icing:

• Whisk all ingredients until smooth. Adjust to your desired consistency by adding more powdered sugar to thicken or more lemon juice to thin. Drizzle icing over cooled muffins.

Icing:

If you’d prefer to top these with another flavor icing, you can omit the lemon juice and replace it with milk and add any of the following:

• A few pinches of cinnamon
• A couple drops of maple or vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon finely grated orange zest

Adding fruit (optional):

Before the dry ingredients are fully mixed into the wet ingredients, you can stir in 1 ripe-firm peeled chopped pear or 1 cup fresh cranberries to the batter.

Recipe updated November 2021. Original recipe HERE.