Cranberry Sauce Muffins: Test 1

Source

Total time: 45 minutes
Yield: 12 large muffins

Equipment

Mixer
12 cup muffin tin
Muffin cups

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup whole milk
1 large egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup cranberry sauce or pulp
1/4 cup crystalline sugar (optional)

Procedure

  1. I started by preheating the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In my standing mixer (though you can use a bowl and hand mixer easily here) I mixed together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
  2. I got lazy and just tossed all the wet ingredients in next, sans egg shells (don’t be a smart ass). The cranberry sauce can be the pulp left over from making cranberry jelly, leftovers of your cranberry jam or store bought. I would recommend to use something with actual fruit bits in it for texture. I also would be hesitant to use something like cranberry relish here, I worry there is too much water, though maybe it would work, I haven’t tried.
  3. Then turn on your mixer and get things thoroughly mixed but don’t overwork it. Get it so the batter looks the same throughout but don’t leave it running for an hour. You want to work it less if possible which will ensure less gluten development which means your muffins will be lighter. Think of gluten as binding power, we don’t want a lot of that in a muffin.
  4. I divided these into 12 muffins. This meant that my muffin cups were full almost to the top and is why my muffins have that awesome dome on top. Don’t be afraid of overflowing your muffins, they’re going to be great.
  5. I sprinkled some of that crystalline sugar for a fancy muffin effect. This is a personal choice, they’re great without this too.
  6. I baked these for 22 minutes and even remembered to rotate the pan half way through.

Results

I am in love with these muffins for a few reasons. Firstly, I hate waste and cranberry sauce never gets finished so this satisfies my obsession with using up all leftovers. Second, when they actually get a few minutes to cool before you try to eat them, they develop this crust on top that is incredible. I have rarely been able to achieve this in a homemade muffin. Lastly, they look so darn good! I mean look at those domes!

Notebook

Fruit Muffins

Published by

Tali Apostolico

I'm a baking addict with a history of messing around in a lab. Science, an intense interest in food and flavor, and creative genes! Thus, Exploratory Kitchen was born! A scientific approach to producing delicious and customizable foods with the aim to understand the ingredients and not just follow the recipe.

2 thoughts on “Cranberry Sauce Muffins: Test 1”

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.