Can you freeze cupcakes and muffins?

A few years ago I would have laughed at you if you’d told me that not only would I have a big bag filled with homemade muffins in my freezer but that I would also be baking specifically to keep that bag topped up but these days it just normal to me.

I often bake muffins on a Sunday and freeze most of them before we’re tempted to eat them all (we would given half the chance) and then every night when I’m making lunches for the following day, I just get one out and pop it in the packed lunch box where it will defrost overnight ready to be eaten at lunch the next day.

There’s lots of other reasons to freeze muffins though, we freeze leftover muffins before they go stale if they’re still around after a few days (a rare occurrence in our house) and I have been known to bake cupcakes in advance for the school bake sale and freeze them because I know I’m going to be busy in the days before it.

It took me years to realise that you could freeze muffins and cupcakes though and even after someone had told me about it, I still had a quick Google before I actually did it- there was no way I wanted to waste good muffins if it wasn’t going to work!

The things that I Googled are the same questions that I’m asked whenever I post that I’m freezing muffins and as I’ve had an email from a lovely reader this week asking the very same thing, I thought I’d answer on here too in case it was something that any of you are wondering….

Can I freeze cupcakes or muffins?

Yes you definitely can – I do it all the time but remember to label them with the date you made them and what flavour they are if you’re going to make a few different batches.  Master Frugal was highly unimpressed to bite into a carrot and courgette muffin when he was expecting peanut butter and banana!

How do I freeze them?

I let my muffins or cupcakes cool down completely before I pop them in to the freezer on a baking tray. If your baking tray won’t fit in your freezer you can just put them in individually on as flat a surface as possible in there. Once they’re completely frozen you can pop them into one bag or if you prefer, into individual sandwich bags.  If you’re freezing cupcakes then I recommend doing so before you ice or decorate them as I’ve no idea what the defrosted cake would look like if you froze a fully decorated cupcake!

What do frozen cupcakes or muffins taste like when they’re defrosted?

No different at all. Honestly, they taste just the same to me!

And if you want a good base recipe for all of your favourite sweet muffin flavours then I strongly recommend my super easy muffin recipe or try my favourite ever savoury muffin recipe for cheese

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow me on BlogLovin or Networked Blogs and I’d love to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram.

Image credit: Shutterstock, Helmut Seisenberger