These moist, tender spiced gingerbread muffins are perfect for chilly winter mornings. They’re everything you love about gingerbread cookies, without all of the work!
We’re big fans of gingerbread around here, even for breakfast! If you like these muffins, you’ll definitely love our Gingerbread Pancakes and Gingerbread Waffles.
Gingerbread, but without all the work!
It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas around here!
We’ve spent the past few days getting all of the decorations up, wrapping gifts and baking all sorts of goodies like these gingerbread muffins… mmmm. They’re sweet, tender and packed full of spices. Everything you love about gingerbread but without the work!
I don’t know about you, but when the weather gets cold, I can’t help but want to bake all day. Thankfully my little sous chefs are always happy to help… mainly the 2 year old. He was so excited to make gingerbread muffins he danced around the kitchen saying, “it’s party time!” For like 20 minutes straight. So we cracked open a carton of Almond Breeze Almondmilk Cashewmilk and got to work!
Delicious AND Dairy Free
I’ve mentioned before that I was on a dairy-free diet for a while when our little one was born. That lasted for over 6 months and then he was on a dairy-free diet for another 6 months or so. That meant I had to get creative when it came to cooking and baking… lots of coconut oil and lots of almond milk! To this day he still loves it! This Almond Breeze blend was a total hit with him!
We used it in both the batter and the icing (which is totally optional but definitely yummy). It worked perfectly and gave these muffins an added richness- along with the molasses and spices.
Ingredient Tips
Spices: You’ll need cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. I’d highly recommend using all four of these to get that wonderful robust flavor that gingerbread has. You can usually find each of them in the bulk spice section of most well-stocked grocery stores.
Turbinado Sugar: That’s the gorgeous golden chunky sugar you see sprinkled on top of the muffins. You can usually find this in the bulk section as well.
Oil: The recipe calls for canola oil, but you can also use coconut or vegetable oil.
Cashew Milk: You can substitute any kind of milk for the cashew milk. Cow’s milk, coconut milk, almond milk, soy, etc.
Molasses: I recommend using light or dark molasses rather than blackstrap. Blackstrap molasses is overpowering, salty, and bitter, because it doesn’t have as much sugar as normal molasses.
How to Make Gingerbread Muffins
PREP. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a standard size muffin tin with 12 liners, set aside.
BATTER. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, molasses, oil and applesauce. Mix until combined. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined. In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Gradually alternate adding the dry ingredients and the milk. Mix just until combined.
BAKE. When you’ve got the batter made up, divide it between 12 muffin cups and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Then turn down your oven to 375 and bake for an additional 5-7 minutes or until the tops spring back. The initial high heat will help give the muffins that crackly high dome look. AKA: bakery style muffins.
GLAZE. When the muffins come out of the oven you can either eat them as-is or add a thin maple vanilla glaze to them. I’d definitely do a few of them like this (I did half with coarse sugar and half glazed). Because that glaze is everything.
Variations
Vegan? You can make this vegan by simply switching the chicken eggs to flax eggs, the rest of our recipe is already vegan friendly!
Other frostings/glazes: Try a Vanilla Bean Glaze or our Maple Vanilla Bean Frosting.
Really, you can change this up any way you want!
Storage Tips
The muffins will keep for 3-4 days in a sealed container at room temperature. If you glaze them, that will further help them stay fresh instead of drying out on top. If you want, you can also store them in the fridge to get an extra couple of days out of them.
For freezing the muffins, you need to let them cool completely before wrapping each of them individually in plastic wrap and then in a layer of foil. Then you can place your muffins in a freezer safe ziploc bag for about 3 months. Thaw them at room temperature and eat once they have reached room temperature.
Guys. these muffins were devoured within seconds! We couldn’t help but go back for more. I think it’s safe to say that they’ll become a winter staple around here. How could they not? They’re easy to whip up and taste absolutely divine! Plus they were a hit with the toddler, which is always huge!
So go grab some Almondmilk Cashewmilk and get baking!
For more holiday desserts, try:
Gingerbread Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar - packed
- 1/3 cup molasses
- 1/2 cup canola oil - OR vegetable OR coconut oil
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp kosher sea salt
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 cup cashew milk - we like Almond Breeze*
- turbinado sugar - for sprinkling on the top
For the Maple Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp cashew milk - we like Almond Breeze*
- 1 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a standard size muffin tin with 12 liners, set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, molasses, oil and applesauce. Mix until combined. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined.
- In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Gradually alternate adding the dry ingredients and the milk. Mix just until combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tin (I used a large cookie/ice cream scoop) - fill ¾ of the way full. Sprinkle with sugar if desired (omit if you plan on glazing them).
- Place into the oven and bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then turn the oven down to 375 degrees and bake for an additional 5-7 minutes or until the tops spring back when touched. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- For the glaze: in a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, milk, maple syrup and vanilla.
- Dip the tops of the muffins in the glaze and swirl for 30 seconds or so to remove any excess glaze. Allow to harden/set for 10 minutes before serving.
NOTES
Nutrition
This post is sponsored by Almond Breeze Almondmilk. As always, all opinions are my own.
I followed the recipe to a T but my muffins sunk. Any idea how that must’ve happened?
Maybe they were undercooked? Or your leavening agents weren’t fresh? It’s hard to tell without seeing a picture of them.
I made these for my daughter’s pre-school class. I thought they tasted amazing and her teacher said they were very much enjoyed by all. Thank you!
Made these today! The recipe made 12 large muffins, but I had to cook them about 6 minutes longer than it said. They’re really good, but I wish they were about more gingery. Next time I make these I’m gonna add more spices. Otherwise they’re great! Thanks for the recipe 🙂