I have used a lot of dried cranberries while baking but am picky about the fresh ones. So far I have tried only one recipe using fresh cranberries. It is this cranberry bars recipe from the Joy of Baking website. Although it did come out well and tasted good, somehow I did not develop a liking for this beautiful red fruit. I think part of the reason is my quirky food likings. I usually don't like sweet and sour or sweet and spicy together.
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A dish has to be either fully sweet or fully spicy. So its obvious that I do not like the combination of tart cranberries and sweet in baked goods. Anyhow I decided to give it a shot once again this cranberry season.
Lately I have been seeing a lot of Indianized cranberry recipes. Cranberry rice, cranberry pickle, cranberry dal, etc. just to mention a few. So I decided to try at least that if at all not baking with cranberries. Recently I also got hooked to the Taste of Home website.
I have got a baking book published by that magazine and am a fan for those recipes. I have had a 100% success rate with those recipes. I don't know what stopped me from visiting their website all these days. A couple of days back I borrowed a Taste of Home Cookies book from the library. It has 623 recipes and I was so tempted to get one for myself. That's when I decided to check out their website to see if they have free recipes online and I was overjoyed to find the same.
I looked for some cranberry recipes in there and bookmarked this cranberry muffins recipe. It was a simple straight forward recipe and the egg substitution was easy too. I decided to use flax seed meal as the egg substitute like I used for the vegan cranberry quick bread recipe and it turned out great.
For the past couple of months I have been incorporating a lot of whole grains and whole grain flours while baking. So I decided to used plain all purpose flour this time. Partly the reason being, my phobia for cranberries.
Since I was not sure if I would like cranberries I didn't want to use whole wheat flour and mess it up further. Surprisingly these cranberry muffins did not fail me. It tasted pretty good with mild sweetness, occasional tartness from the cranberries here and there and a nice crunch from the pecans. I would definitely try this recipe again but would increase the quantity of sugar a little bit.
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- All Purpose Flour - 2 cups
- Brown Sugar - ¾th to 1 cup
- Baking Powder - 2 teaspoons
- Chopped Pecans - 1 cup
Wet Ingredients:
- Canola Oil - ⅓ cup
- Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice - ⅔ cup
- Flax Egg - 1 count
- Orange Zest from 1 Orange.
- Coarsely Chopped Fresh Cranberries - 1 cup
Recipe
Vegan Orange Cranberry Muffins
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
- ¾th to 1 cup Brown Sugar
- 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1 cup Pecans Chopped
Wet Ingredients:
- ⅓ cup Canola Oil
- ⅔ cup Orange Juice Freshly Squeezed
- 1 count Flax Egg
- 1 tablespoon Orange Zest From 1 orange
- 1 cup Fresh Cranberries Coarsely Chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 375F/190C for 15 minutes. Grease or line a muffin tin with paper liners.
- In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients and keep it aside.
- Whisk together the flaxseed meal and warm water and set it aside for it to turn gooey. Or if you have a mini blender jar (like that of Magic Bullet) you can blend the flaxseed meal and water until it's nice and frothy.
- Measure orange juice in a liquid measuring mug, add water until you reach 1 cup measure in the mug. To this also add the oil, flax seed mixture, orange zest and stir together well.
- Pour the liquid ingredients to the flour mixture and mix until just moistened. Fold in the cranberries too. Do not overmix.
- Spoon in the batter in the greased muffin tins. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Move the muffin tin to a cooling rack and let it cool for just 5 minutes. Then remove the muffins from the pan and cool it completely on a wire rack.
My Notes
- The quantity of sugar mentioned in the original recipe was ¾th cup and I used the same, but felt that the muffins could have been a little more sweet. So you can increase the quantity to 1 cup.
- I always prefer freshly squeezed orange juice in baking recipes. I have found out in my experience that the store bought orange juice is slightly bitter and the bitterness reflects in the baked goods too.
- If you wish to use frozen cranberries, do not thaw it. Use it directly from the freezer otherwise the berries will start bleeding turning the batter red.
Nutrition
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Stevie says
I also had to alter the recipe due to my celiac disease (so no gluten) and just what I had on hand (for example, I was out of brown sugar, only had dried cranberries, and had orange juice but no fresh oranges), but this recipe worked great as a template! Keep in mind there are some things I wing in the kitchen (like extracts and add ins like the cranberries) so my measurements for some things aren't always exact.
Here's what I did:
First, I mixed the following together in a big mixing bowl:
-2 cups of King Arthur gluten free measure for measure flour
-2 teaspoons of baking powder
-3/4 cup organic cane sugar
Then I added the following to the same bowl:
-3/4 cup of Simply orange juice plus an extra splash
-1 flax egg (except I don't blend mine, I just mix a tablespoon of ground flax with 3 tablespoons of warm water and let it sit for about 10 minutes)
-1/4 cup of water
-2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons of pure maple syrup
- 2 splashes of vanilla extract
-1 small splash of lemon extract
-1/3 cup of extra light olive oil plus another small splash
-Probably about 1 cup of dried cranberries (I literally just kept adding a little at a time until it looked like enough for me lol)
Mixed all together and poured into my muffin pan.
Baked for the same amount of time at the same temperature
Madhuram says
That's great to know, Stevie. Thank you very much for the detailed feedback. It will be very helpful for others who want to bake gluten-free.
Carolina R. says
Great recipe! A couple of things I did differently:
-Orange zest of two oranges
-3/4 cup of fresh squeezed orange juice and the rest water
-1 cup of gluten free flour and 1 cup of almond flour
-1 tablespoon of orange extract
-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
-Dried cranberries, did not have fresh
-Coconut oil instead of canola
-3/4 cup of date sugar instead of brown sugar
Came out great! I followed the suggestion of others and did more orange zest + orange extract. They have a huge amount of orange flavor. May just do 1/2 tablespoon of orange extract next time because the orange is a touch too much for me but my boyfriend said it was perfect! Made the house smell amazing! I'd like to try making it in loaf form next time (like someone else previously mentioned). Will also do 1 cup of date sugar next time, could use the added sweetness.
Madhuram says
Wow, Carolina! Thank you so much for the detailed feedback. I'm happy that it came out with gluten-free flour and almond flour too. Now I want to try that.
Ashwini Shanbhogue says
Every one of your recipes is such a hit in my family! Have tried this before and again today. Substituted half APF with Almond meal. So yum!
Madhuram says
Thank you very much, Ashwini. It's great to know that this recipe works well with almond meal too!
Dory Gordon says
My family loves fresh cranberry orange relish for Thanksgiving. This is it, in a muffin. Delicious.
Madhuram says
Thanks for trying the recipe, Dory.
Angela Crossin says
I made this today for Christmas. I loved this recipe! I used dried cranberries I had rehydrated and some candied orange peel. I also used half spelt flour/wheat flour. In lieu of pecans, I used chopped pistachios. Added a hint of cinnamon, too.
Madhuram says
That's awesome, Angela. Thank you for the feedback.
Yuri says
These are such a hit every time I make them!!! They are delicious! I usually add 1cup of sugar for extra sweetness and they turn out perfect every time!
Madhuram says
Thank you very much, Yuri.
Shivani Shah says
Can I use dried cranberry in all the recipes that uses fresh cranberries? What should I take care of while using dried cranberry?
Madhuram says
You can, Shivani. Dried fruits and even fresh fruits tend to settle down at the bottom of the batter so it's recommended that you toss the fruit in few teaspoons of flour and then add to the batter so that the fruit is evenly distributed throughout the batter and hence in the baked treat too.
Stephanie says
Hi! I’m going to make these and have one quick question...should I use light or dark brown sugar? I have a lot of dark brown sugar so I would like to use it but wonder if it has too high a moisture content. Thanks for any advice.
Madhuram says
Sorry I didn't reply earlier, Stephanie. The type of brown sugar doesn't matter.
Genevieve says
These turned out great! Followed the recipe as is (using 3/4 cup of brown sugar) and since I don't like my muffins too sweet, these turned out perfect. Thanks for the great recipe!
Madhuram says
You're welcome.
Heather says
I made these yesterday and brought them to work. My team is raving about them. Said they were bakery quality - Best they have every had! I am not making this up. Today my boss came in and commented on how good they were again.
Madhuram says
Wow! Thank you so much for the feedback, Heather. You made my day!
Yolanda says
I had a few missteps and this recipe was very forgiving! I forgot the part where you add the water to the OJ so the batter seemed a bit dry. I just added the extra 1/3 cup at the end. Also accidentally added the chopped cranberries in with the wet ingredients rather than folding them in at the end. Still fine. For the flax egg, rather than using and dirtying a blender, I just added 1TB ground flax with 3 TB water to a small bowl and let it thicken while I worked on juicing the oranges, then added it to the wet ingredients. The only slight modifications I made were using 1/2 c brown sugar and 1/2c (scant) white sugar plus 1tsp vanilla extract on another reviewer’s suggestion. Don't have a muffin tin so I used a loaf pan and baked for 50 minutes. My apartment smells like fresh oranges and the loaf is verry delicious!!! Baking always feels like such an exact science so I was sure with all my mistakes it would turn out horribly but exactly the opposite. I may consider dropping the heat down a few degrees next time if I’m still using the loaf pan. Absolutely delicious warm from the oven. Thank you for the recipe! This one I’ll be keeping 🙂
Madhuram says
Thank you very much for the detailed feedback, Yolanda. These days I too don't blend the flaxseed meal and water. Just mix it and leave it as you have mentioned.
Elicia says
These are good. I subbed aquafaba for the flax mainly because I made hummus and had the aquafaba.
I squeezed the oj and thought I had enough zest but definitely could use more of a orange flavor. Next time I make these I may cheat and add orange extract.
I did use my meathly to chop the cranberries which made them small and they incorporated very well.
Thank you.
Madhuram says
You're welcome, Elicia. It's great to know that aquafaba works in this recipe.
Rebecca says
I doubled the amount of zest and still couldn't taste any orange :/ Other than that the recipe was very good. Going to try again in a few minutes and add a even more zest and possibly do a mix of fresh and dried cranberries.
Madhuram says
Thanks for the feedback, Rebecca. Maybe adding some freshly squeezed orange juice might help.
Gertrude says
Excellent!
Madhuram says
Thanks, Gertrude.
Virginiadyer says
...sat in the kitchen waiting for my muffins to cook and finding the oil sat on the worktop....:(
Let's see....
Selena says
Yes, it's not mentioned in the recipe where to add the oil.
Madhuram says
Thanks for pointing it out. Have updated the recipe.
Ronak S Bagadia says
Hi ,
This recipe is really amazing, I tried it, the orange rind is a very pleasant surprise!
Madhuram says
Thanks Ronak.
Siobhan says
Is it possible to use agave instead of sugar?
Madhuram says
In this recipe it's a bit tricky Siobhan, because this recipe already has a lot of liquid in the form of oil, juice. Using agave will make the batter more runny and you would have to do a lot of other tweaking.
Kalpana says
Thanks for the recipe, Madhuram! My kids love them. I try to go a little less on the sugar than what you have recommended and it still comes out tasting great!
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Kalpana.
Rinkal Haria says
Thanks Madhuram will try and post the review.
Madhuram says
You're welcome Rinkal.