Simple but delicious muffins for Christmas breakfast.
These are utterly delicious! Full of fresh ingredients and the gorgeous scent of Christmas. Cranberry and orange are perfect combination and I think these muffins would be perfect served warm for Christmas breakfast maybe with some Greek yoghurt. I have made them using homemade cranberry sauce opposed to just fresh cranberries as they can be quite tart for some people’s taste.
I have also used freshly squeezed orange juice instead of milk so they are in fact dairy free and of course I made mine gluten-free too.The orange juice worked brilliantly and definitely something I will be using again in place of milk.
Danni at Hungry Healthy Happy made Cranberry and Orange muffins too and they were on her blog yesterday. Great minds think alike, Danni’s are quite different to mine so do check out her recipe too. I love her style of writing and her recipes too, it is a blog worth going to visit and hopefully one day I might get to meet her as despite our age gap between us I think we would get on really well!
I have done the recipe for the amount of cranberry sauce you need for the recipe but there is something quite lovely about making cranberry sauce on Christmas eve to go with lunch the next day. It is really easy and done and dusted in less than 15 minutes with only a stir here and there of your attention needed. I saw Jamie Oliver using left over cranberry sauce, with re-fried left-over Christmas pudding and using ice cream and nuts made for a lovely Christmas sundae too! Mmm I have loved sundaes this year! So why not double the amount you need and have some for this recipe and some for Christmas dinner!
These muffins can be frozen and defrosted then warmed in the oven for a lovely breakfast muffin. You can also make the cranberry sauce a couple of day’s before and keep it in the fridge. The other great thing about muffins is you can weigh up the dry ingredients all ready and just store in an airtight container ready for when you need it.
So no more talking let’s get this recipe to you:
For these scrumptious Fresh Cranberry & Orange Christmas Muffins you will need:
280g of plain flour (for gluten-free I used 180g Rice flour & 100g gluten-free flour but all gluten-free flour would be fine too)
3 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of mixed spice
1/2 salt
85g castor sugar
180ml freshly squeezed orange juice from two large oranges
90ml sunflower oil
1 egg (2 eggs for gluten-free)
Zest of one of the oranges above.
For the cranberry sauce you will need:
150g fresh cranberries washed
150g castor sugar
Zest of one orange (the other one you are using for the juice)
Muffin mix and cranberry sauce about to be stir in.
100ml water.
First make the cranberry sauce.
Simply put all the ingredients in a small saucepan over a low heat and stir occasionally for 10 minutes or until the cranberries are soften and you have a loose jam like consistency. Set aside to leave to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and put 12 muffins cases in a 12 hole muffin pan. There maybe some mixture left over so I made 8 mini muffins too.
Now to make the muffin mix.
Simply put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl. Flour, baking powder, salt, mixed spice and sugar and mix together.
In another bowl or jug put the eggs, orange juice, orange zest and oil and mix together thoroughly.
Now add the wet to the dry mix and fold in. It may be lumpy, no need to worry this is correct for the muffin mixture.
Fold in the cooled fresh cranberry sauce and fill the muffin cases to three quarters full. Any extra either do a couple more muffins or if you have a mini muffin pan do a few mini ones for smaller appetites. Or you can just add more to each case for really big muffins.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and springy to touch. Mini muffins will need only 15 minutes.
Leave to cool.
Fresh out the oven.
Sprinkle with icing sugar for a festive and simple decoration.
Bursting with cranberry & orange freshness.
You may also like my chocolate and spice festive muffin recipe with easy but effective decoration idea’s or you might like my spiced cranberry and apple pies my take on minced pies, liked by those who don’t even like dry fruit!
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