Spice Up Your Morning With Gingerbread Muffins
on Dec 12, 2024
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These gingerbread muffins capture all the warm, spicy goodness of traditional gingerbread in a convenient, grab-and-go breakfast treat that’s perfect for busy holiday mornings or afternoon coffee breaks.
There’s something magical about the aroma of gingerbread wafting through your kitchen on a crisp morning. The heavenly aroma while they’re baking is reason enough to make them — your whole house will smell like a cozy holiday morning.
These muffins are a beautiful mash up of classic gingerbread flavors and tender, cake-like texture. The combination of molasses, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves creates that signature gingerbread taste we all know and love, while buttermilk keeps them incredibly moist.
The sparkling sugar topping adds a delightful crunch and festive touch that makes these muffins truly special. Plus, they’re perfect for make-ahead breakfast or brunch since they store beautifully and can even be frozen for later.
Why You’ll Love This Gingerbread Muffin Recipe
- Perfect Texture: The texture is absolutely perfect — tender and moist with a slightly crisp, sugary top.
- Sweet & Spicy: These muffins strike the ideal balance between sweet and spicy, making them suitable for both breakfast and dessert. Talk about double duty!
- Make Ahead: Storing these muffins in the freezer for up to 3 months won’t make them less moist, and they will reheat beautifully.
- Basic Holiday Ingredients: The ingredients for these muffins are pantry staples you likely already have on hand during the holiday season.
🫖 When the cool weather moves in, I break out the spicy muffin recipes! They’re perfect for mornings, afternoon snacks, or dessert — with coffee or tea.
Recipe Ingredients
- Buttermilk
- Egg
- Molasses
- Light oil — such as vegetable, avocado, etc.
- All-purpose flour
- Brown sugar
- Ground spices — ginger, cinnamon, and cloves
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Turbinado sugar — or sparkling sugar
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How to Make Gingerbread Muffins
Step 1: Set out ingredients to get to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line the tin with paper liners.
Step 2: In a medium sized bowl or a large glass measuring cup, add the buttermilk, egg, molasses, and oil. Whisk to combine well and set aside.
Step 3: In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and add the wet ingredients, stirring stir to combine.
Step 4: Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups; they will be quite full. Sprinkle the sparkling sugar evenly over the top of the muffin batter in the tins.
Step 5: Bake for 25-30 minutes until the centers of the muffins are set and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Step 6: Allow the muffins to cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Recipe FAQs
You can make a buttermilk substitute by adding 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to regular milk and letting it sit for 5 minutes. However, real buttermilk will give you the best texture and flavor.
Absolutely! They freeze beautifully for up to 3 months. Just wrap them individually in plastic wrap and store in a freezer bag. Thaw overnight at room temperature or warm briefly in the microwave.
While molasses gives these muffins their characteristic gingerbread flavor, you could substitute dark corn syrup or honey, though the flavor will be noticeably different.
Expert Tips
- Don’t Overmix: Stir the batter just until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Overmixing will lead to tough muffins!
- Full is Good: The muffin cups will be quite full — this is intentional and gives you those beautiful domed tops. If you’re worried about overflow, place a baking sheet under the muffin tin while baking.
- Sparkly Tops: For the most beautiful presentation, reserve a little of the sparkling sugar to sprinkle on top of any batter that might have been smudged while filling the tins. This ensures every muffin has that perfect sparkly top.
- Cooling Tip: Let the muffins cool in the pan for exactly 5-10 minutes before removing them. Too short, and they might fall apart; too long, and they could become soggy on the bottom.
My Favorite Muffins For Tea!
I like a muffin full of flavor to go with a cup of tea or coffee — it just makes the perfect pair! Here are some of my spicy muffin recipes I break out when I want to do a tea or coffee time treat:
- Super easy pumpkin spice muffins — only dirties one bowl!
- Apple cinnamon muffins are my go-to early fall muffin.
- Filling carrot cake muffins make a really good snack to see you through until lunch.
More Muffin Recipes to Consider
Breakfast Recipes
Pineapple Zucchini Muffins
Muffin Recipes
Maple Sweetened Healthy Banana Muffins
Muffin Recipes
Healthy Pumpkin Muffins
Muffin Recipes
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Did you make this recipe? Leave a ⭐️ review and share it on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest!
Gingerbread Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup buttermilk
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1/4 cup light oil, such as vegetable, avocado, etc.
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup turbinado sugar or sparkling sugar, for the muffin tops
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin well (I think shortening is best for greasing tins) or line the tin with paper liners.
- In a medium sized bowl or a large glass measuring cup, add the buttermilk, egg, molasses, and oil. Whisk to combine well and set aside.
- In a large bowl add the flour, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine.
- Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the well and stir to combine.
- Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups; they will be quite full.
- Sprinkle the sparkling sugar evenly over the top of the muffin batter in the tins.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until the centers of the muffins are set and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow the muffins to cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes
- If you don’t want really big muffins you could dived the muffins into 18 or so muffin cups and cook them for around 20 minutes.
- You don’t have to add the sparkling sugar to the tops, but it makes them looks so pretty and adds a nice texture.
- Be sure to grease your muffin tin very well if not using paper liners. I have found shortening to be the best to grease pans with. It seems to help things not stick the best.
- These store great and can be served warm or at room temperature. You can store them at room temperature for 3 days or in the freezer for much longer.
Made these this morning. My grandkids each ate 2! Very tender and deliciously spicy. I ended up with 15 very full muffins. They puff up and look so pretty.