Eclecticisms: Cranberry Orange Muffins

Today was super productive, as planned (or... as hoped)! I took the dog for a walk to the store, took all the X-mas stuff down, cleaned the house, make a casserole (recipe to come!), made 4 pairs of earrings to put up on Etsy and made cranberry muffins. Yum!

I had a pumpkin cranberry muffin at a place near my work last week and it was so good that I decided to make something similar. These muffins turned out great! Using organic cranberries made a huge difference in the taste. Seriously... if you don't buy organic, you should. It's good for your tastebuds, your health and the earth. What are you waiting for? (It isn't as pricey as you'd think... sometimes the prices are only a few cents more!)

I found this recipe on bakespace.com.

Ingredients

1 cup dried organic cranberries

1/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup organic unsalted butter, softened to room temp

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

2/3 cup organic granulated sugar, plus more for topping muffins, if desired

2 large organic cage-free eggs, at room temp

1/2 cup milk ( I like to use soy, but the soy I have on hand has a slight taste to it that I though might affect the flavor of the muffins.)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In a small sauce pan, combine the cranberries and orange juice (one orange will yield enough juice and zest for this recipe!) and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and allow to cool. The berries will absorb the juice, and smell heavenly while doing so!

My cousin Chrissy helped me out with these. She's a great helper! Here she is juicing the orange.

While the berries are cooling, line or grease your muffin tin. Now, sift together flour, salt and baking powder; Set aside.

Using your mixer, cream the butter, sugar and orange rind. Beat until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes).

Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

Egg head... or face?

Take the bowl off of the mixer and fold in flour (in 3 parts) and milk (in 2 parts), alternately. Don't over mix the batter. It was easy to work the flour in... I had been a bit nervous since I'm so used to using my mixer for everything!