Cranberry Streusel Muffins
Cranberries are a unique and wonderful fruit that for their brilliant color and tartness, merit use in many ways other than Thanksgiving’s cranberry sauce. In Cranberry Streusel Muffins, we use the Blueberry Muffins recipe from July 21st, substitute cranberries for the blueberries, and add a streusel topping.
These are delicious for a simple weekend breakfast, accompanying a bowl of Irish oatmeal, overnight oats, or a more elaborate morning repast. The recipe makes twelve good-sized muffins so there is plenty for family that returned home for the holiday.
As with all early in the day baking recipes, gathering the ingredients and tools the day before makes a big difference in morning happiness. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and cover. Grate the orange rind, place in small bowl or container and refrigerate. Make the streusel topping and refrigerate. In fact, the streusel can be made far in advance and frozen.
Demerara or coarse white sugar may be substituted for the streusel topping for a muffin with a crispy top. Lastly, remember the keys to Muffin Method success – have all ingredients at room temperature and mix the wet and dry ingredients until just combined.
Cranberry Streusel Muffins
| Yield: 12 muffins | # of Servings: 12 | Method: Muffin |
Ingredients:
2 ¾ cup (12.5 oz / 354 g) pastry or all-purpose flour
1 tbl + 1 tsp (.6 oz / 17 g) baking powder1
¾ cup + 4 tsp (6 oz / 170 g) sugar
½ tsp (.1 oz / 3 g) salt
2 ½ cups (9.2 oz / 261 g) cranberries, roughly chopped
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup milk
4 tbl (2 oz / 57 g) butter, room temperature, melted2
1 orange, grated rind
1 recipe Crumb Topping
Special tools and equipment needed
- One standard 12-cup muffin pan
- Standard-sized muffin pan liners
- 1.5 fl oz (#20) ice cream scoop
Pre-recipe preparations:
- Rough chop the cranberries by hand or in the food processor (use pulse to avoid over-chopping)
- Place liners in muffin cups
- Melt butter just until mostly liquid then stir to complete melting.
- Preheat over the 400 °F
Directions
- In large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
- Add chopped cranberries and stir to distribute.
- In medium mixing bowl, whisk together the liquid ingredients.
- Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in the liquid ingredients, and stir just until all the flour is moistened. Do not overmix. There may be a few small specks of flour on the cranberries, it is best to simply press them down by hand into the batter instead of stirring the batter again.
- Scoop batter into muffin cups. The batter should fill each cup.
- Sprinkle each muffin with a scant 2 tablespoons of crumb topping.
- Bake for 18 to 21 minutes, just until the muffins feel firm the touch and paring knife or wooden skewer reveals no wet crumbs. Note – be careful when testing muffins with a crumb topping, as the it is very hot.
- Remove muffin pan from oven and place on cooling rack for ten minutes.
- Remove each muffin from the pan by gently lifting the top and place on cooling rack.
- Extras may be wrapped individually and frozen.
Notes:
- Aluminum-free baking powder is strongly recommended.
- Room temperature butter is called for as it is easier to melt without bringing to a high temperature. The melted butter should be barely warm when you’re ready to combine ingredients. If too hot, it will congeal when added to the milk.
Baking Tips:
- Coarse white sugar sparking sugar or Demerara sugar may be substituted for the crumb topping.
