Cranberry-Orange Muffins

I have found my inspiration to post more often! As of last night, I'm taking part in The Cookbook Challenge. My blog focuses on recipes from cookbooks anyway, but now I have the fun of themes and deadlines with this. And I just love a challenge!

Today is the final day for the current theme, citrus, so I had to use what I had on hand. The only citrus fruit that I had was oranges, so I started searching through all my cookbooks looking for a good recipe that uses oranges, and I really couldn't come up with much. For some reason, if people want to make something that involves citrus, they pretty much only ever want to use lemons.

So I had to settle for a recipe that wasn't very citrus-y, being outshined by the cranberries, but still very good.

This is another recipe from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook, published in 1996.

1 tbsp grated orange peel

1 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 large egg

2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour

1/3 cup sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup fresh cranberry halves

Note: I felt that these could have been sweeter, so you might want to increase the sugar slightly.

I honestly had no idea what the inside of a cranberry looked like before today.

Beat orange peel, milk, oil, vanilla, and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder and salt all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).

Fold in cranberry halves.

Heat oven to 400F. Grease bottoms only of 12 medium muffin cups or line with paper baking cups. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

(This is what overstirred muffin batter looks like. I decided at the last moment to add a little bit of cinnamon, and stirring that in made the batter a lot less lumpy.)

Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden. Immediately remove from pan to wire rack.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

It's finally October! So why not have a recipe that involves pumpkin? Actually, I really love pumpkin so don't be surprised if I make a post in April with something pumpkin-y. This recipe is from Muffins by Elizabeth Alston, published in 1985. The original recipe includes almonds, but I don't care for nuts in bready or cakey things, so I left them out. I've written that part of the recipe in brackets.

[1/2 cup (1 1/4 ounces) sliced unblanched almonds]
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup plain pumpkin (half of a 1-pound can)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 cup (6 ounces) chocolate chips

I also included a dash of ground cloves. For the chocolate chips, I used Ghirardelli bittersweet baking chips. They're larger than most chocolate chips, but they worked perfectly.

Heat oven to 350F. [Put almonds on a baking sheet or pie pan and bake about 5 minutes, just until lightly browned; watch carefully so almonds don't burn. (You can also toast them in a toaster oven.) Slide almonds off the baking sheet so they cool quickly.]
Grease muffin cups, or use foil or paper baking cups.
Thoroughly mix flour, sugar, pie spice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.


Break eggs into another bowl. Add pumpkin and butter, and whisk until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips [and almonds].


Pour over dry ingredients and fold in with a rubber spatula just until dry ingredients are moistened. This is the most important part of making muffins. You must never over-stir!


Scoop batter evenly into muffin cups. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until puffed and springy to the touch in the center. Turn out onto a rack to cool. Wrap in a plastic bag and keep for 1 or 2 days. I've had pumpkinbread and pumpkin muffins go wonky pretty quickly, so definitely try to eat them all within just a few days.

Delicious! This recipe was so easy and the muffins tasted amazing, so I'll definitely make these many more times in the future.