Spiced Cranberry and Orange Muffins

 Spiced Cranberry and Orange Muffins

Makes 20-24 muffins! 

Well it’s September so that means Autumn is upon us. A fact I am far too excited about! My favourite season by far, leaves turning the most amazing colours, bright crisp mornings, Bonfire Night and Halloween, toffee apples, or just apples and pears in season, cosy comfort food and snuggly nights in watching the wind and rain from indoors. Okay okay...I’ll stop! 

One of my favourite autumnal flavour combos for sweet baking is orange and cranberry with sweet warming spices so I decided to knock up some muffins with those flavours.  They do not disappoint if I do say so myself. 

This recipe uses orange zest and juice but I didn’t have an orange so I substituted it for the zest and juice of two lovely sweet satsumas/easy-peelers just be careful when grating the zest not to rip the whole skin off. 

Ingredients:

100g dried cranberries 

Zest and juice of a large orange/2 satsumas etc.

2 eggs

125ml oil (not extra virgin olive oil as it’s too strong flavoured)

250ml milk

125g caster sugar and 125g soft brown sugar (or just 250g caster sugar, the brown sugar just adds a caramel note)

400g self raising flour

Pinch salt

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon 

0.5 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Method:

In a little bowl, soak the cranberries in the orange zest and juice while you do the rest of the recipe. It just helps them to plump up a little and they absorb a little of the citrus flavour and become like little fruity bombs in the muffins. 

Preheat the oven to 180*C fan

Break the two eggs into a large bowl/bowl of a stand mixer and whisk on high speed for one minute till they are full of bubbles and fluffy.

Add the oil and milk and whisk till combined. 

Then add the sugar and whisk again till the mixture is smooth.

Add the flour, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix in till just mixed.

Add the cranberries, zest and orange juice. Whisk in briefly till it’s just mixed.

Scoop into paper cases in a muffin tin.

Bake for 15-20 mins till a skewer/cocktail stick comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for 10 mins then turn out onto a wire rack to fully cool.

TIP: For a crispy top you could add a teaspoon of Demerara sugar to the top of each muffin right before they go in the oven. Or you can ice them with a drizzle icing which is just a mixture of icing sugar and orange juice and zest.