Are you craving a sweet treat that will leave you feeling warm and cozy, but don’t feel like pumpkin muffins this time? You have to try these really moist cranberry orange muffins with zesty orange glaze. Imagine biting into a fluffy muffin bursting with tangy cranberries and zesty orange flavor, topped with a sweet glaze that adds just the right amount of sweetness to make them extra special.
These delectable muffins are perfect for any occasion, any time of year. They don’t have to be just a fall time treat or the holiday season. These muffins are a delightful “Me Time” breakfast treat with your hot cup of coffee or tea or just something delicious to bake for family. Get ready to tantalize your taste buds and impress your friends and family with this irresistible recipe. Let’s get baking!
Moist From Scratch Muffins
Ditch the store-bought muffin mix and try your hand at making these cranberry orange muffins from scratch. This recipe is easy to follow and extra moist (without using chemicals). Boxed mixes are full of artificial ingredients that taint the flavor and texture of the muffins. This foolproof recipe gives you a batch of moist and flavorful muffins that will impress your friends and family.
What’s the secret to these being so moist and not dried out? Firstly it’s the sour cream in the batter. Sour cream adds moisture to your batter, but doesn’t thin out your batter too much. The fat of sour cream adds richness as well. If you want to make good food, fat is necessary. As Julia Child used to say, “Fat gives food flavor.” I’m no chef, just a home cook, but ask almost any good chef out there and they’ll all agree with that statement. Fat is key in making food taste amazing!
Cranberry Orange Muffins Ingredients
- Cranberries- I use dried cranberries in this recipe. I have made these with fresh cranberries and frozen/defrosted ones, but my tasters were not fans of the tartness of the fresh cranberries. If you prefer fresh cranberries, be my guest in using them, just please keep in mind the flavor will vary and your bake time will change. You will need to bake them another few minutes.
- Oranges– I use thick skinned fresh naval oranges, but I have also used Cara Cara when I did not have naval oranges available. You are using the fresh orange zest and the fresh orange juice from these oranges.
- Flour– I use unbleached organic all purpose flour. The more I’ve baked over the years, the more I’ve found and accepted that the best way to bake is to weigh your flour instead of measuring out how much flour you need.
- Sugar– brown and white cane sugar
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Salt– I like to use coarse sea salt.
- Eggs– 2 large whole eggs
- Sour cream– Why sour cream you ask? Sour cream is the secret to making these muffins really moist. If you don’t have sour cream, whole milk Greek yogurt is the next best thing to use in place of it.
- Vanilla extract
- Orange extract– If you don’t have orange extract, you can simply sub this for vanilla. The only reason I add orange extract to this recipe is because I find that most oranges I get in the grocery store don’t have a strong enough orange taste to give these muffins enough of that great orange flavor I’m looking for, so the extract helps to add just a touch more great flavor.
Zesty Orange Glaze Ingredients
- Powdered Sugar
- Orange Juice
- Orange Zest
- Salt– Just a dash of sea salt
Cranberry Orange Muffins with Zesty Orange Glaze
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 Tbsp. butter unsalted & softened to room temp.
- 1/3 cup brown sugar packed
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 whole naval oranges zested (divided- saving about 1/2 Tbsp. for glaze.) Note: Save oranges for juice.
- 1/2 cup orange juice From the Naval oranges you zested, about 1.5 oranges juiced. Note: Amount of juice will vary per orange type and size.
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp orange extract If you don't have orange extract, you can simply sub this for vanilla.
- 9.5 oz. all-purpose unbleached flour 9.5 ounces is about 2 cups spooned.
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 cup dried cranberries Rehydrated with boiling water for 15-30 mins & drained. Note: If using fresh or frozen cranberries, baking time and taste of muffins will change.
Orange Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp. orange juice
- 1/2 Tbsp. orange zest
- dash salt
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 425F.
- Add 12 paper muffin liners to muffin 12-cup muffin tin.
- In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer bowl, cream butter with sugars for about 1 minute.
- Add the eggs, mixing in 1 at a time, followed by sour cream, orange juice, zest, orange and vanilla extract. Stop and scrape sides as needed.
- Add all dry ingredients to large mixing bowl; flour, baking powder, baking soda, sea salt and mix.
- Add the dry flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir just until mostly wet, doesn't have to be perfectly mixed yet.
- Fold in the cranberries and mix just until you don't see any more dry spots. Do not overmix.
- Carefully spoon batter, about 2 Tbsp. into the the paper liners, being careful not to get too much batter on the sides of the liners. Â I like to use a small ice cream scoop for this. For my small 1 Tbsp. scoop it's almost exactly 2 scoops per liner.
- Bake the muffins in the center on the middle rack at 425 F for 5 minutes. Be sure to set yourself a timer!
- Then reduce temperature to 375 F (no need to open the oven) and bake another 12-15mins, or until toothpick inserted into the highest peak comes out clean.*See Note Below on Muffin Tins*
- Let the tin cool for about 5 minutes before transferring the muffins in their liners onto a wire rack to cool for at least 20 minutes.
Making the Orange Glaze
- Once the muffins are close to room temperature you can make the glaze.
- Add powdered sugar, orange juice, zest and a dash of salt to a medium mixing bowl and whisk with hand mixer or stand mixer until glaze is smooth, with no clumps.
- Once the muffins are fully cooled to room temperature you can glaze the muffins. It's up to you if you want to glaze the tops of the muffins just in the paper liners or if you want to remove the liners first. You might not use all of the glaze either, I use about 3/4 of the glaze.
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