Breakfast doesn’t get much better than this.
This is the time of year when you need to buy scads of fresh cranberries and squirrel them away in your freezer for the rest of the year, to make things like Cranberry Lemon Scones, Cranberry Orange Sweet Rolls, Cranberry Sauce Oat Bars, and these-here muffins. My 6-year-old isn’t the most enthusiastic muffin eater, but she declared these “her favourite muffin ever” and even asked for one in her lunch for school. High praise indeed.
These muffins come from a cookbook chock-full of delicious inspiration to make you hungry – how could it not with a title like this:
I normally love a picture of every recipe, but it’s a good thing this cookbook doesn’t have that or I would be buying chocolate chips by the truckload and eating myself right out of fitting through doorways. There are so many recipes in here I plan to try, from Chocolate Chip Pecan Waffles to Chocolate Cherry Biscotti to Chocolate Mint Sandwich Cookies. Literally everything you can think of that tastes good with chocolate, from butterscotch to coconut to cherries to orange, are featured in various recipes throughout this book. There are drinks, desserts, cookies, and, of course, muffins.
For the record, I’m not sure why there appear to be pecans or walnuts or something on top of their muffins, since they aren’t in the ingredient list…but I guess they can’t hurt, right?
The sprinkle of sugar on these muffin tops makes these extra pretty and special, but the fluffy vanilla muffin is what makes you want to eat just one more. The bright cranberries make these feel festive and fun, and I love that the cranberries are chopped first so you get bits of tart cranberry in every bite but no big, juicy splurts of sourness as whole cranberries can sometimes do. I am always on the hunt for new muffin recipes since I make them almost weekly, and these will definitely be added to the rotation for whenever fresh cranberries are on hand. If you like cranberries, chocolate, vanilla and soft, fluffy muffins, you’re gonna looooove these.
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1⁄4 tsp salt
- 1 1⁄2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
- 1 1⁄4 cups granulated sugar, divided
- 2 eggs
- 3⁄4 cup milk
- 1⁄2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tsp grated orange zest (zest from one orange - or substitute lemon zest)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1⁄2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a muffin tin with paper liners or spray with cooking spray.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.
- In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, coarsely chop cranberries.
- In a large bowl, whisk together 1 cup of the sugar, eggs, milk, oil, orange zest and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture just until combined. Fold in chopped cranberries and chocolate chips. Do not overmix.
- Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle evenly with remaining sugar.
- Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 24 minutes or until puffed, golden and a tester inserted into
- center comes out clean. Let cool in pan on rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool
- completely on rack.
Courtesy of 125 Best Chocolate Chip Recipes: Quick, Easy, Fun Ideas by Julie Hasson 2014 © www.robertrose.ca Reprinted with publisher permission. Available online or wherever books are sold.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this cookbook from the publisher to review. I was not compensated for this post and all opinions are, as always, my own.
These muffins look terrific. They are going on my to do list for sure.
The Old Fat Guy