Exactly what you expect when you crave cranberry orange muffins! These simply perfect cranberry orange muffins are light and fluffy, lightly sweet and chock full of fresh cranberries!
These muffins are exactly what I think of when I think of cranberry orange muffins. They are light and fluffy, chock full of fresh cranberries and lightly sweet. On top is a sprinkling of sugar, for a lovely bit of crunch.
You can make these muffins with either fresh or frozen cranberries, so we can enjoy these lovely muffins any time of year.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Cranberries – you can use fresh or frozen cranberries for these muffins. For frozen cranberries, use from frozen and allow a bit of extra baking time, to account for the cold cranberries. I like to toss frozen cranberries in 1 tsp of flour before adding to the batter to keep them from clumping together.
If you only have access to dried cranberries, you can use them here (though it’s hard to replace the lovely tart fresh ones!). For dried cranberries, plump them by soaking in very hot water for 10 minutes, then drain and pat dry well. As dried cranberries are sweetened, you may wish to reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe by a few tablespoons.
Orange – as you will need both orange zest and freshly squeezed orange juice, you will need to start with a fresh orange.
Vegetable Oil – I prefer to use vegetable oil in baking, but any neutral-tasting cooking oil such as canola or sunflower will work here.
Recipe Tips
- The muffins shown are the large size (yield of 10). You can make them regular size by dividing the batter between 12 cups, if you prefer.
- Be sure you don’t over-mix your batter when you add the wet ingredients to the dry. Stir just until any traces of flour disappear.
- You may notice that I am essentially making “homemade buttermilk” when mixing the lemon juice with the milk ahead. So yes, you could substitute buttermilk in the recipe. The reason I go this route is that it allows me to use whole milk, whereas buttermilk is just 1% base. So the lemon brings the tang of buttermilk, with a more substantial milk.
Tip Tip!
If you have empty muffin cups, be sure to fill the empty cups 3/4 full with water before putting your muffins in the oven. This will ensure that your muffins bake evenly.
Get the Recipe: Simply Perfect Cranberry Orange Muffins
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup milk, whole milk recommended
- 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and levelled
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon fine table salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 1/4 cups white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- Zest of one orange, about 1 Tbsp
- 1 teaspoon vanilla or vanilla bean paste
- 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
For topping:
- 2-3 Tablespoons white sparkling sanding sugar, demerara sugar, turbinado sugar or white sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F. (regular bake setting/not fan assisted) Spray a 12 cup muffin tray with baking spray or line with paper liners. Set aside.
- Add lemon juice to milk. Stir and let stand 5 minutes.
- In a large bowl, whisk together well the flour, baking powder and salt.
- *If using frozen cranberries, do not thaw. Toss with 1 tsp flour before adding to batter. Starting with frozen cranberries will add 5-8 minutes to your baking time.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk/lemon juice, the vegetable oil, sugar, eggs, orange juice, vanilla and orange zest. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing just until combined and no flour is visible. Fold in the cranberries.
- Divide the batter amongst the 10-12 muffin cups (10 for large muffins, 12 for regular muffins). Sprinkle tops generously with sugar.
- Bake at 425F for 5 minutes, then reduce the oven temp to 375F and bake for another 13-16 minutes if you started with fresh cranberries or 18-22 minutes if you started with frozen cranberries. Bake until lightly golden and a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pans. Remove from pans and store in an airtight container.
Notes
More Simply Perfect Muffin Recipes to Love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
Used vinegar as a substitute for the lemon juice to curl the milk (half), worked great will definitely use this recipe again maybe with blue berries!
So glad you enjoyed them and yes, vinegar works well, too :) Thanks!
Made these yesterday and they are delicious and they look awesome, too!
So glad you enjoyed them, Judy! Thanks :)
Can u make these without vanilla and orange juice?
Hi Isabella, you could. I would simply increase the orange zest, replace the orange juice with equal amount of water and omit the vanilla.
These are SO delicious! In case anyone is dairy free, I replaced the whole milk with a milk alternative (ripple brand dairy free milk made from peas – closest tasting to cow’s milk that I’ve found so far) plus 2 tbsps of coconut yogurt for the buttermilk effect. They came out perfect and I bet if you didn’t have the yogurt on hand they would still be great. Also I subbed apple sauce plus 1 tbsp of oil (totalling half a cup) for the half a cup of oil. I also slightly increased the cranberries and folded most of them in but reserved a few to sprinkle on top of each muffin just before the sugar because I love the pretty contrast of the pink cranberries against the pale batter. I wish I could post a picture! Thanks for the recipe, these muffins totally cheered me up today :)
So glad you enjoyed them, Vanessa and thanks for the details on substitutions. THe cranberries on the top sound pretty. If you are on instagram you can post a photo there and tag me @seasonsandsuppers
These are in the oven baking as i type. Wet and windy here in southern Omtario and has been for days: so bright red cramberries and orange is just what i needed brighten the day. Will have some for my boys and some my dh can take to work on the night shift tonight for the 4 am break.
It is exactly the same weather here, Vicky, so a great baking day, for sure! Enjoy :)
I doubled the cranberries and we had colored sugar for the top! They turned out perfect. So easy and I made them with 3 kids !!
So glad to hear, Kathy :) Thanks!
These muffins have a beautiful slight crisp on the muffin top on the outside, but are moist and sweet and delicious on the inside. It’s the perfect texture and flavour, I’m so excited! I’ve been searching for a “copycat” recipe to honour my favourite fast food muffin, the orange cranberry from McDoanlds, and I’ve finally found it! Except this is even better. Thank you!!!
So glad you enjoyed these, Victoria! Thanks :)
Ohhhh, love this comment bcs that’s exactly the muffin I wanted to try to reproduce at home! Only beef I’ve got with the McDonald’s one is when the muffin doesn’t have enough cranberry and you feel ripped off. Won’t have that issue at home!!
Can’t wait to try.
Enjoy!
I love cranberry orange muffins and these are so pretty!
‘Simply perfect’ sounds accurate applied to these muffins:) And believe it or not, there were still fresh cranberries in the produce section last Monday. Have a wonderful week, Jennifer!
Thanks so much, Milena and yes, I saw some at the market today, as well!
Is there anything more comforting than a homemade muffin fresh from the oven? These are simply perfect!
Thanks so much, Annie :)
These look awesome! Just the perfect cranberry muffin, which is great this time of year. I haven’t worked much with fresh cranberries but this might be an awesome recipe to give a shot with em! Plus your directions seem very easy to follow and super thorough, thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much, Matt :)
I feel so lucky this morning because I was smart enough to squirrel away a few bags of fresh cranberries in my freezer, these muffins look like they have the perfect texture, I can’t wait to get baking :)
You are all set then, Sue! Enjoy :)
Hi Jennifer,
I made these muffins this morning. They are indeed perfect! The taste is a great combination of sweet and tart and the texture is light and not at all heavy or oily. I used regular sugar for the top and it made a nice crackly topping. I’m thinking that next time I may toss in a handful of walnuts just because…. :-).
I did have a question as to what size muffin pan you used. I have what I thought was a standard muffin pan and the recipe made 12 hefty-sized muffins (not that I’m complaining!). The tins were full to the top before baking. No problems at all as far as doneness was concerned and they are nicely golden on top, not burnt. I’m just curious. I think these would also make really nice mini-muffins.
I haven’t looked at your blueberry muffin recipes but was thinking that this recipe would be a good base with lemon zest and juice instead of orange and blue berries instead of cranberries. Next time!
Thank you, as always, for posting such great recipes.
Lynne
Hi Lynne and so glad you enjoyed these! And yes, I’m thinking that my muffin tins are maybe on the bigger size. While they are “regular sized” (not jumbo), they are quite old muffin tins, so maybe they made them bigger back then :) In mine, I used an ice cream scoop and they were well filled and domed above the surface in the middle. At that size, I got 10 muffins in my pans. It’s definitely a win if you got 12 nice big ones! :)
And yes, I think you could definitely swap out blueberries and lemon in these for another great muffin!
Wow Jennifer – these look absolutely perfect! That texture and color is amazing. I bet these would be good with any kind of fruit. Thank you for another outstanding recipe!
Thanks Tricia and yes, very adaptable to all kinds of fruit, for sure :)
Hi Jennifer, I am going to make these cranberry muffins in the next few days! My question is what can I substitute the oil with, I was thinking of melting unsalted butter? Thank you for any suggestions!
Hi Saundra, I suspect that would work. Butter vs oil tends to change the texture of muffins (not as light), so keep that in mind. Also, be sure it is cooled enough before adding, so you don’t cook the eggs :)
They do look simply perfect Jennifer! One of my favorite kind of muffins.
Thanks so much, Mary Ann!