Cranberry Cardamom Muffins
Cranberry cardamom muffins are a sweet, tart, and fragrant way to start your day (and use up that extra bag of cranberries in your fridge)
Happy New Year!! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Today we’re heading back to work to kick off the 2014 year. And I’ve got one of these cranberry cardamom muffins packed in my lunch to enjoy once I get to my desk today.
I had an extra bag of cranberries in the fridge after the holidays and set out to use them up quickly. I could have just frozen them, since cranberries freeze so well, but I already have 3 bags of cranberries in the freezer…
These muffins are mixed by hand, with a wooden spoon. It’s a great recipe to throw together on a Sunday morning while you’re brewing your coffee. And with a sprinkling of decorating sugar, they’re all sparkly. Just like the snow that we’ve had outside for the past couple of weeks and months.
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Cranberry Cardamom Muffins
Cranberry cardamom muffins are a sweet, tart, and fragrant way to start your day (and use up that extra bag of cranberries in your fridge)
Yield: 12 muffins
Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup orange juice
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
coarse sugar, for topping
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degF. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, whisk together vegetable oil, sugar, brown sugar and egg until well combined. Whisk in cardamom, ginger and vanilla. Stir in half of the flour mixture, followed by the buttermilk and orange juice. Stir in remaining flour mixture, mixing until no streaks of dry ingredients remain. Fold in cranberries so that they are evenly distributed in the batter.
Divide batter evenly between prepared muffin cups, filling each at least 3/4 full. Top muffins with coarse sugar.
Bake for 17-19 minutes, or until muffins spring back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Turn muffins out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Recipe from Baking Bites
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
This has been a great hit this winter in “ski country” –easy to make with (pretty) easy ingredients to have on hand (once you buy the bag of sliced almonds, frozen cranberries, and almond extract!)
First time I made it as written. Delicious but very strong almond flavor. Second time I reduced the 1/2 c sugar on the cranberries to 1/4 cup, sub’d fine cornmeal for 1/2 the flour and reduced the almond extract by half. Pretty tart but almost all my friends liked it better (and if you want it sweeter you can add the whipped cream or ice cream…) and it is a nice counterpoint on a dessert buffet of sweeter brownies and cookies.
Thanks for the recipe! Hope you are doing well in Ohio.
beantownbaker — January 14th, 2013 @ 3:45 pm
So glad you’ve enjoyed this. I loved how simple it was to make! Almond extract definitely has a strong flavor, so I can see cutting it down for sure! Ohio is treating us well so far.