Cranberry Orange Muffins

Square side shot of a bowl of easy cranberry orange muffins

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5 from 3 votes

You only need one bowl, a whisk, and about 15 minutes to make the best bakery-style cranberry orange muffins!

Course Breakfast, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword cranberry orange muffins, orange cranberry muffins

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 25

Total Time 40

Servings muffins

Calories 228kcal

Author Blair Lonergan

Ingredients

5 tablespoons salted butter, melted
½ cup sugar
Zest from 1 orange
¾ cup (6 ounces) sour cream
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ cups fresh or frozen cranberries (very large cranberries halved)
Optional: ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Coarse sugar, for topping

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Line a muffin tin with 9 paper liners. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, sugar, orange zest, sour cream, egg, and vanilla extract.
Sprinkle the baking powder, baking soda, and salt over top. Whisk to combine.
Add the flour and gently stir with a wooden spoon or spatula, just until combined and no dry streaks of flour remain. The batter will be nice and thick!
Fold in the cranberries and nuts (is using).
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Sprinkle the top of each muffin with coarse sugar.
Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into each muffin comes out clean and the tops are golden.
Cool muffins in the pan for about 5 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes

When zesting the orange, be sure that you only scrape off the outer layer of the peel (this is where the essential oils and delicious flavor can be found). Be careful not to grate any of the bitter white pith.
The key to a perfect muffin is just barely mixing the ingredients. You want them to come together, but a few lumps are fine. This way they’ll stay moist and tender!
Fill the muffin cups nice and full. I like to use an ice cream scoop to make sure that each cup has an equal amount of batter, ensuring that the muffins bake evenly in the oven.
To check if the muffins are done, insert a toothpick into the center and make sure it comes out clean. Don’t cook them for too long, or they can dry out.
This recipe yields 9 standard-size muffins. You can bake the batter in jumbo muffin tins for giant bakery-size treats. You'll need to increase the total baking time to 30-35 minutes for the jumbo muffins. Similarly, you can bake the batter in mini muffin tins. The mini muffins will bake much faster, so they will only need a total of about 12-15 minutes in a 350°F oven.
Add this streusel topping. Sprinkle on top of the muffin batter, pressing down gently. Bake according to recipe instructions.
Top the muffins with an orange glaze like this one.
Double the ingredients to bake 18 muffins instead of just 9.
Blueberry Cranberry Muffins: Use ¾ cup of fresh or frozen blueberries and ¾ cup of fresh or frozen cranberries for a nice combination of sweet-and-tart ingredients. You do not need to thaw frozen blueberries and you do not need to halve or chop the blueberries before adding them to the batter.
Use dried cranberries instead of fresh cranberries.
Add ½ cup chocolate chips to the batter instead of nuts.

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