Bakery-style cranberry orange muffins with a lovely sugar crumb topping and a bright citrus flavor that turn them from an ordinary muffin into a brunch celebration!
Classic cranberry orange muffins are easy to make, and are fine for all diets, soft and delicious, and also dairy-free, vegan and high in fiber. They have a gentle dome muffin-top and a sugary crumb on top, just enough sweet to make it a dessert while still keeping the healthy. Like my chocolate chip muffins or my bakery blueberry muffins, they make a wonderful breakfast treat.
Ingredients
Flour - Use all purpose flour or 1 to 1 gluten-free baking flour or oat flour. If using oat flour, double the amount of flour - so 2 cups instead of 1 cup, and double the orange juice, so ½ cup instead of ¼ cup. That's because oat flour absorbs more liquid than other flours do.
Sugar - Use organic cane sugar if you can. It tastes better and usually certified fair trade so workers who farm this sugar are not exploited.
Butter - Use regular unsalted butter, or vegan butter for a vegan or dairy-free diet.
Aquafaba - The liquid from a can of chickpeas (or pinto beans) to replace eggs.
Cranberries - You can use either frozen or fresh in this recipe. If you use frozen, the muffin will have pink streaks because of the wetness of the frozen berries. You can minimize this by tossing the cranberries in flour before folding them into the batter. Specifically, rinse the frozen berries, pat dry, and then toss them in flour - whichever flour you are using in the recipe.
Orange Juice - Instead of using milk as in most muffin recipes, I use orange juice. Use not-from-concentrate OJ, or squeeze fresh oranges.
Steps to Make
1.Preheat the oven at 400 F.
2. Next, make the crumble top first and freeze it while you make the muffin batter.
3. Finally, make the muffin batter in ONE BOWL people. But don't just throw those cranberries in.
4. Toss the cranberries - fresh or frozen - in flour.
5. Then fold those berries in. The flour keeps them dispersed evenly in the batter AND prevents them from turning gooey and the batter pink.
6. Fill the cupcake wells at least ⅔ of the way, pack on the topping and put them in that hot oven THEN lower the oven to 350 F and bake for 25 minutes.
Recipe Tips
1. Toss the cranberries in flour before putting them into the batter. I didn't slice mine in half, but you can if you want to. It might make your cake a bit pinker even with flouring the berries.
2. Make your crumble top first and put it in the freezer while you make muffin batter. If you want to set it aside for longer than half an hour, don't freeze, just refrigerate.
3. For the topping, be sure your butter is chilled, not softened, certainly not melted.
4. Fill your muffin wells nearly to the top and then add your crumb. To be sure your muffin tops don't stick to the pan, be sure to grease the TOP of the pan.
Muffin & Donut Recipes
Healthy Chocolate Chip Muffins
Healthy Double Chocolate Muffins
Chocolate Frosted Donuts
Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts
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📖 Recipe
Healthy Cranberry Orange Muffins
Ingredients
Muffin
- 1 ⅔ cups oat flour or use 1 cup all purpose flour or gluten-free baking flour.
- ¼ cup butter softened or room temperature
- ⅔ cups organic cane sugar
- 3 tablespoon aquafaba liquid from a chickpea can
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ cup orange juice
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- ¾ cup fresh cranberries
Sugar Crumb Top
- ½ cup oat flour or all purpose flour or gluten-free baking flour.
- ½ cup organic cane sugar
- 3 tablespoon butter softened
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
Instructions
Prep
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Grease the top surface of the 6-well cupcake pan (so muffin tops don't stick). Then line the cupcake pan with paper liners.
- Toss the cranberries in flour and set aside.
Make Sugar Crumb Top
- Make the top first and freeze while you make muffins
- To do this, use a fork to mix the flour, sugar, butter and zest together into a crumbly mixture. Don't thoroughly cream it up. Instead, let chunks of flour and butter be visible. Add in the hemp hearts and zest.
- Put bowl in the freezer (or refrigerator for more than half hour) while you mix up muffins.
Make Muffins
- In one large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until combined.
- Add in the aquafaba, vanilla, orange juice and zest.
- Sift in flour, salt, baking powder.
- Mix this mixture until creamed together.
- Fold floured cranberries into batter as well.
- Fill each cupcake well with batter nearly to the top.
- Sprinkle and lightly pack on the sugar crumb topping.
- Put the pan in the oven, and lower heat to 350 F. Bake at 350 F for only 20 minutes.
Storage
- Store the muffins in a sealed container for 24 hours at room temperature if you want. The tops begin to moisten however. So within a day, put them in the refrigerator for a week or longer frozen.
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