Cranberry Orange Muffins
Tender, bakery-style cranberry orange muffins baked with freshly squeezed orange juice, fresh, tart cranberries, and a lovely streusel topping. These beautiful muffins can easily be made gluten-free, and are perfect for your holiday brunch table!
Servings 12 muffins
Ingredients
- For the streusel topping:
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons (75g) all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ cup (53g) packed light brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons (28g) salted butter, melted
- Dry ingredients:
- 1 ¾ cup (210g) all purpose flour (or gluten free 1:1 all purpose flour)
- ½ cup (56g) blanched fine almond flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- Wet ingredients:
- 1 cup (200g) organic cane sugar (or granulated sugar)
- Zest from 2 large oranges
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- ½ cup (100g) freshly squeezed orange juice (from about 2 large oranges)
- ⅓ cup (75g) vanilla or plain whole-milk or 2% Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- ½ cup (1 stick, 113g) salted butter, melted
- Mix-Ins:
- 1 ½ heaping cups (165g) fresh cranberries
- 2 tablespoons (15g) all purpose flour
- Optional Topping:
- ½ cup cranberry jam or leftover cranberry sauce
Instructions
- Make the streusel topping: In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Add in the melted butter and stir together with a fork until it begins to form into crumbles and resembles pea-sized clumps. You may need to use your hands/fingers to form into nice crumbles. Place in the fridge.
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with bakery style- parchment paper liners. To make parchment paper liners for bakery style muffins: cut out twelve 6-inch squares of parchment paper. Cut about 2 inches deep on each side of the square. (You’ll end up with four cuts on each square.). Press the center of each parchment piece to the center of each muffin tin, allowing the edges to naturally fold on top of each other. Use your fingers or a cup to press the paper down. Don’t worry if the paper rises a bit. It will naturally sink down once you add batter.
- Mix together dry ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate large bowl add the sugar and orange zest and use your fingers to rub the orange zest into the sugar for at least 30 seconds to infuse the sugar with orange flavor.
- Mix together wet ingredients: In the same large bowl with the orange zest and sugar, add in eggs, orange juice, yogurt, vanilla extract and almond extract. (Do not mix in the butter yet!) Whisk together until well-combined and smooth.
- Combine: Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Stir in the melted butter until well combined. Do not overmix the batter, you just want to stir it until the batter is smooth.
- In a medium bowl, add the cranberries and 2 tablespoons of flour and stir to coat the cranberries. (This is so the cranberries do not fall to the bottom of the muffins when baking!) Gently fold cranberries into the muffin batter.
- Divide batter evenly between the prepared muffin cups. Add about 2 teaspoons of cranberry jam on top of each muffin. Sprinkle the streusel around the jam as best you can so that you can still see the jam coming through.
- Bake for 7 minutes at 425ºF, then turn the oven heat down to 350ºF and bake for 12 to 18 more minutes until a tester comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool for 10 minutes in the pan before enjoying.
Notes
To make regular size muffins: Divide batter between 16 greased muffin liners. You'll likely need to reduce the baking time by 3 to 5 minutes total.
To make dairy-free: Use dairy-free yogurt and vegan butter.