Christmas Morning Muffins ~ Cranberry Orange Muffins

Christmas morning muffins or cranberry orange muffins are easy and light muffins to bake for Christmas morning breakfast or any day breakfast, as a matter of fact. These muffins are fruity, spicy and just a perfect bake for a holiday breakfast.

Cranberry Orange Muffins are Nigella Lawson’s Christmas Morning muffins. Orange zest and freshly squeezed orange give a citrusy flavor, dried cranberries, nutmeg and cinnamon powder give the festive flavor to the muffins. I cut back on cinnamon and followed the recipe to T.

Muffins are butter-less, making it a light breakfast for a festive morning before the big feast. The aroma of the spices and flavors emitted when baking giving a holiday feel. Muffins are soft, moist and spongy. When preparing the muffins, I felt 2 ½ tsp of baking powder was a bit too much and even contemplated cutting down on baking powder to 2 teaspoons. Though the muffins were spongy and tasted good, there was this lingering acidic taste on my tongue after eating more than 1 muffin. I do not know if it is my mind playing tricks on me or baking powder was indeed a bit too much! Or I ended up using a bit too much orange juice! Recipe called for 2 clementines and I substituted one big orange. Regardless, this was a good bake.

If planning on baking these for Christmas morning breakfast, measure the dry ingredients and line the muffin pan the night before. This makes baking the muffins much more faster in the morning. Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season!!

Source: Nigella Lawson
Total Time: 30 – 35 minutes
Preparation: 10 – 15 minutes
Bake Time: 20 minutes
Yields: 12

Note – Whenever a recipe has weight measures, I prefer those over cup measurements. Cup measures listed below are approximate measures.

Ingredients:

• 250 grams All Purpose Flour, (approx. 1 ¾ cup)
• 2 ½ tsp. Baking Powder
• ½ tsp. Baking Soda
• 100 grams Superfine Sugar ~ Castor Sugar (approx. ½ cup)
• 1 tsp. Ground Cinnamon (I used ½ – ¾ tsp.)
• ¼ tsp. Ground Nutmeg
• 2 Clementines, zest & juice or 1 Orange (I used an orange and it was approx. 1 – 1 ½ tsp. zest and 110-120 ml juice)
• 125 ml Whole Milk (less or more depending on the citrus juice)
• 75 grams Vegetable Oil, (approx. ⅓ cup oil. I weighed oil as well 🙂 Can substitute melted and cooled butter)
• 1 Large Egg
• 175 grams Dried Cranberries (approx. 1 cup firmly)
• 3 tsp. Demerara Sugar for topping or Granulated Sugar

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 400F.
• Line 12 cups regular muffin pan. I used a ½ dozen muffin pan and ½ dozen paper muffin cups.
• Measure all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon powder and nutmeg powder. Sieve all these ingredients together or take all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until well combined.
• Add superfine sugar, orange/clementine zest to flour bowl and whisk or mix until combined. If doing the prep work ahead of time, that is night before, leave out the orange zest. Add the zest next morning, just before baking.
• Squeeze the juice from orange/clementines. Take it in a measuring cup or a jug. I got about 120 ml of orange juice.
• Fill the juice cup or jug with milk until the mark reads 200 ml, less than 1 cup.
• Add egg and oil to juice+milk mixture and lightly beat until combined.
• Pour this egg juice mixture into dry ingredient bowl and stir with a fork or a spoon until everything is combined. Do not over mix and a slightly lumpy batter is ok, though my batter was lump free.
• Fold in the cranberries and spoon the batter into lined muffins pan.
• Sprinkle demerara sugar on top, ¼ tsp per muffin and bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes or until tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean and muffins are light golden brown. I forgot to sprinkle sugar on before baking hence my muffins aren’t golden brown.
• Serve the muffins hot as is or with some butter or jam.

Suggestion:

• Walnuts would be a nice addition or perhaps some choco chips.

This day in 2015: Broiled Spicy Shrimp

This is part of the Bake-a-thon 2016

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