Glazed Peach Muffins Recipe

Fresh, juicy peaches are a fruit we most commonly associate with cooling summer drinks and fruit platters, but there's no reason why these sunny little treats can't be incorporated into something a little more cozy. Today, we're bringing you a super wholesome bake by recipe developer Catherine Brookes. These peach muffins are soft, fluffy, and packed with chunks of fresh peaches. What's more, there's a wonderfully sweet yet simple glaze drizzled all over the top of the muffins, making them that extra bit more mouth-watering.

Peach muffins can be enjoyed for any occasion, whether it's a spot of casual home baking, or you're preparing them for a get together with friends and family. They're incredibly easy to make, with minimal prep time and easy to source ingredients. Just whip up the batter, add the diced peaches, fill your muffin tin, and pop the muffins into the oven. Enjoy these summery treats for breakfast, as a snack, or even for dessert — the beauty of muffins truly lies in their versatility.

For the base of the muffins, we'll first mix up a simple buttermilk batter. First, whisk together all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Then, in a separate bowl, whisk white sugar, brown sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla extract, and buttermilk. Once the wet and dry mixtures have been combined into a batter, you'll add fresh, diced peaches. Finally, for the icing glaze, it's a simple case of combining powdered sugar and milk.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugars, oil, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk.

Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and whisk until combined.

Add the diced peaches and gently fold to combine.

Transfer the muffin batter to a lined muffin baking tin.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer poked into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Leave in the pan for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Mix together the powdered sugar and milk to make the glaze.

Spoon the glaze all over the tops of the cooled muffins and serve.

Since these muffins are made with a super versatile vanilla batter, it's incredibly easy to adapt them by simply swapping in another fruit in place of the diced peaches. There are a huge range of fruits that would taste amazing baked into these muffins, but the key thing to keep in mind is dicing the fruit small if it isn't already (blueberries or raspberries would be fine added whole), and keeping the quantity of fruit the same. Approximately 1 ½ cups of diced fruit will be equal to the three fresh peaches we use in the original.

For a fall-inspired muffin, try adding apples or pears. You could even add a hint of cinnamon to the batter for extra spice. Or, to keep things fresh, try adding cherries, strawberries, or blackberries. If you love tropical flavors, you could opt for diced pineapple or mango. Of course, you can mix and match your favorite fruits as you please.

If you're not a fan of an icing glaze, it's no problem at all to omit this part of the recipe. But, there are also plenty of other ways to add a little something extra to the muffins. A popular addition to fruit muffins is a streusel topping. This is typically made with a combination of melted butter, sugar, flour, and salt, and scattered on top of the muffins before baking. A streusel topping not only adds some extra sweetness to the muffins, but it also adds a nice crunch to keep things texturally interesting. Alternatively, you could whip up a vanilla or cream cheese frosting for the muffins, which would pair beautifully with those juicy peaches.

If you'd rather keep things simple, a generous dollop of whipped cream or drizzle of honey on top of the muffins would suffice. And if you aren't looking to add extra sugar to the muffins, try scattering them with seeds or chopped nuts like pecans or walnuts before baking. This will give them a wonderful crunch to balance with that lovely tender crumb.