Looking for the best homemade Prune Muffins recipe?

You can prepare our easy Banana Prune Muffins at home in less than one hour.

Prune Muffins are a perfect sweet breakfast or on the go snack. We like to enjoy hot muffins right out of the oven, smeared with ricotta, cream cheese or butter.

You can also serve them as a healthy dessert accompanied by scoops of ice cream, chopped nuts, caramel sauce and sliced fresh fruit.

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History of Muffins

A muffin is an individual-sized, baked product most commonly associated with morning mealtime. It’s one of the most popular on-the-go breakfasts that can easily be made ahead and stored in the freezer to enjoy later.

Muffins can refer to two distinct baked goods, a part-raised unsweetened flatbread that is baked and then cooked on a griddle, and a cupcake-like sweet or savoury quickbread that is leavened with baking powder and baked in a mold.

While the most common quickbread muffins are sweetened (such as lemon blueberry muffins, mincemeat muffins and morning glory muffins), there are also savoury varieties such as jalapeno cheddar cornbread muffins and cheddar apple muffins.

The flatbread “English Muffin” variety is of British origin, and dates from at least the early 18th century, while the quickbread originated in Canada and America during the 19th century.

One 19th century source suggests that muffins may be related to the Greek bread maphula, a cake baked on a hearth or griddle. Culinary historians also look to the Old French mou-pain, meaning soft bread, which may have been corrupted into “mouffin.”

The word is first found in print in 1703, spelled moofin; it is of uncertain origin but possibly derived from the Low German Muffen, the plural of Muffe meaning a small cake. The expression muffin-man, meaning a street seller of muffins, is attested in a 1754 poem, which includes the line: “Hark! the shrill Muffin-Man his Carol plies…”

One of Canada’s top selling cookbooks of the 1980s was Muffin Mania, which helped popularize muffin making from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Homemade muffins were originally prepared as a healthy breakfast option, high-fibre mid-afternoon snack or low calorie dessert.

In 1997, muffins were popularized once again in Seinfeld’s now famous “The Muffin Tops,” episode. Like many muffin lovers, Elaine shared her love for only eating muffin tops. She hilariously talks about the fact that muffin stumps are not worthy of consumption as they don’t have the desirable crunchy texture. She shares the idea of opening a store that sells just muffin tops with her ex-boss and is outraged when he steals her idea.

When he offers her 30% of the profits to help his struggling business, they initially give the unused stumps to a homeless shelter. But after they get complaints about the missing muffin tops by a charity worker, they have to get rid of them elsewhere. Newman eventually takes the muffin stumps off their hands, smiling with glee!

Best Muffin Tools & Equipment

Before making a batch of Banana Prune Muffins make sure your kitchen is outfitted with essential bakers tools.

Mixing Bowl Set: It’s important to have a set of durable mixing bowls. We love stainless steel mixing bowls with a good grip. When making muffins you’ll typically need a large mixing bowl to sift your dry ingredients into, and a medium or small mixing bowl to beat your wet ingredients.
Measuring Cups: Ensure you have a set of measuring cups with a flat top rather than a spout, so you can easily use a knife to level off your dry ingredients like flour and sugar.
Measuring Spoons: We love these durable stainless steel measuring spoons that will help you accurately measure spices, baking soda and baking powder.
Whisk: This stainless steel whisk has a great grip and is helpful when beating eggs into other wet ingredients.
Sieve: It’s essential to have this tool in your kitchen so you can ensure all your dry ingredients are separated and don’t clump in the wet batter.
Bakers Scale: Use this digital scale to weigh flour and other ingredients that require a weight measurement.
Spatula: We love this rubber spatula as it also acts as a spoon so you can easily drop batter into each greased muffin cup.
Muffin Tins: We only use silicone muffin tins as they allow you to easily remove baked muffins from the tin with minimal baking spray required.
Baking Spray: Ensure your cupboards are stocked with baking spray so your muffins don’t get stubborn and refuse to slide out of the pan.
Cooling Rack: A sturdy cooling rack is a must to ensure your muffins cool without falling apart or getting soggy. They need breathing space to let out the steam before storing.
Storage Containers: We love doubling our muffin recipes so we have leftovers to store in the fridge or freezer to enjoy later.

Ingredients you'll need to make Prune Muffins. — Ingredients you’ll need to make Prune Muffins.

Prune Muffins: Prepare wet ingredients and dry ingredients in separate mixing bowls.

My Family Loves Prune Muffins

One of my fondest memories growing up as a kid was waking up in the morning at our family cottage in Muskoka and smelling freshly baked muffins.

My family’s two favourite recipes were Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins and Lemon Blueberry Muffins. In the summer we’d forage for wild blueberries and incorporate them into out favourite baked goods. My sister was the family blueberry fan while I was mostly obsessed with the marriage of banana and chocolate.

These healthy prune muffins are inspired by our love for banana carrot muffins. The recipe features nutritious ingredients such as dried prunes, banana, carrot, apple, oatmeal, egg, yogurt, milk and walnuts.

I was recently rummaging through my mothers pantry and pulled out endless bags of dried fruits such as raisins, apricots, figs, currants and prunes. She had 3 bags of prunes loitering on the shelf and chirped, “use up those prunes in your next muffin recipe!”

So what is a prune?

Prunes are dried plums. Use of the term prune for fresh plums is obsolete except when applied to varieties grown for drying. Most prunes are freestone cultivars, whereas most plums grown for fresh consumption are clingstone.

Adding chopped prunes to a banana carrot muffin batter adds a desirable chewy texture and nutritional value. Prunes are known for being high in fibre, which helps regulate your bowels and bladder. They’re also high in potassium, iron, and vitamins K, A and B-6.

Love baking for your family? Check out our best healthy muffins for kids list!

Buying VS Making Homemade Muffins

Today, muffins are often sold at grocery stores, McDonald’s cafes and coffee shops like Starbucks and Tim Horton’s. Unfortunately most commercially prepared muffins are simply cupcakes without the icing.

Read the ingredients list and you’ll find store bought muffins are full of sugar, fat and “flavourings” rather than real fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs. The excessive sugar, salt, fat and additives in commercial muffin recipes allow the grocery stores and coffee shops to extend the shelf life so they don’t go stale as quickly as a homemade muffin would.

The best way to enjoy healthy muffins is by preparing them at home, allowing you to control the proportion of ingredients. We suggest eating muffins fresh the day they are prepared. If you have any leftovers muffins pack 3-4 in a ziplock bag in your fridge and simply warm them up the next day in the oven. You can use a microwave to reheat muffins but they won’t produce the desired crunchy texture.

Any remaining Prune Muffins should be stored in the freezer and can keep for 2-3 months. We like to double our muffin recipes when we prepare them so we have a storage of yummy muffins in the freezer that we can easily enjoy several weeks later.

Let Prune Muffins cool once removed from the oven.

Best Prune Muffins Recipe

There’s no better comfort food than a steaming, moist Prune Cake, cooling on a rack straight out of a hot oven.

We prefer to prepare healthy Prune Muffins as they are small individual portions. Homemade muffins can be easily stored in the freezer to extend their shelf life and are a great on-the-go breakfast snack.

So what qualities make the best Prune Muffins? The perfect muffin must be crunchy on the outside, well leavened so the muffin cap holds its shape and doesn’t shrink when cooled and feature a moist and light interior.

Looking to prepare easy homemade Prune Muffins? Baking is a science so you can’t just lower a muffin recipe’s fat and sugar content or you will bite into a chewy, hard and unappetizing product.

The best Banana Prune Muffins feature a crispy brown exterior and soft moist interior.

Prune Muffins Tips

If you’re looking to prepare Prune Muffins on a whim and are missing a few ingredients at home don’t worry!

You can easily substitute whole wheat flour if you don’t have All Purpose. Or use buttermilk instead of yogurt or milk.

We prefer to use Granny Smith Apples for the tart taste but you could also use Gala, Honeycrisp or Granny Smith apples in this recipe. If you don’t have a cheese grater, grab your chef knife, making sure to mince the apple so they aren’t large chunks.

Chop the dried prune with a sharp knife as finely as possible. The dried fruit will incorporate into the batter and provide a chewy texture through the muffin crumb.

You can substitute walnuts for pecans or hazelnuts if that’s what you have on hand or prefer. We also sometimes like to add a teaspoon or two of wheat germ for a fibre boost.

The one tip I give all muffin making beginners is to avoid over-mixing the batter. Light and fluffy muffins are made by reducing the amount of gluten in the batter. If you whip muffin batter with a beater the final product will be as hard as a hockey puck.

For best results, form a well in the dry ingredients and pour your wet ingredients inside. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The finished batter should be fully incorporated, so be sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl so you don’t find unmixed flour. The most important rule to muffin making: when mixing, less is more!

Serve Prune Muffins at breakfast or during tea time.

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Best Prune Muffins Recipe

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4.37 from 30 votes

Banana Prune Muffins Recipe

Looking for the best healthy Banana Prune Muffins? Our quick and easy recipe features dried prunes, yogurt, banana, oatmeal and walnuts.

Prep Time20

Cook Time20

Total Time40

Course: Breakfast, Snack

Cuisine: American, canadian

Keyword: Banana Prune Muffins Recipe, Blueberry Banana Muffins, Prune Muffins

Servings:

Calories: 250kcal

Equipment

oven
muffin tins
Mixing bowls
measuring cups
measuring spoons
spatula

Ingredients

2 cups All purpose flour
1/4 cup Rolled Oats
3/4 cup White sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
3/4 tsp Salt
2 Egg
1/2 cup Yogurt
1/2 cup Banana mashed
1 Apple grated
2 tbsp Milk
6 tbsp Butter melted
1 tsp Vanilla
1/4 cup Carrot grated
1 cup Prunes chopped
1/4 cup Walnuts chopped

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400º and grease muffin tin.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, oats, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and the salt.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, yogurt, milk, banana, carrot, apple, melted butter and vanilla.
Make a well in the flour mixture , add the egg mixture, prunes and walnuts and stir the batter gently until combined.
Divide Prune Muffins batter evenly among 12 muffin cups.
Bake muffins on the middle rack middle for 15-20 minutes until they are golden brown.

Nutrition

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