Christmas muffins (The Cranberry Years)

I love Christmas food.

Cranberry clementine muffins

Well, I love my sort of Christmas food – which is almost anything apart from traditional Christmas cake. I love warm and mellow Christmas spices; chestnuts thrown into all manner of leftover dishes just because you have them; turkey; glazed ham; mulled wine; spiced cider; and cranberries. I really love baking with fresh cranberries.

And I know it’s only just December, but I was in the wonderful Whole Foods Market in Giffnock again this weekend and they had ENORMOUS fresh juicy cranberries. I had to have them.

And I had to make muffins with them. I combined them with clementine zest and orange juice, for flavour. And a muffin batter which included extra bran and porridge oats to make them pretend they are somewhere further along that health spectrum than you might imagine. But then lots of melted butter to make sure they are still tastiness itself.

And now you can make them too. If you start now, they’ll be ready within an hour. Unless you have to go out and pick your own cranberries.

Cranberry & clementine muffins

Preheat oven to 375F / 200C / GM5-6. Prepare muffin tins, lining them with muffin cases. Makes about 12 regular muffins . 

• 8oz plain flour
• 1oz bran
• 1oz porridge oats
• 3 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 3oz dark brown or muscovado sugar
• 1 large egg
• 6oz fresh cranberries (you could use blueberries, or other berries of your choice)
• grated zest of 5 clementines
• 7fl oz clementine or orange juice
• 3oz melted butter (or 3fl oz veg oil)

1. Mix together in a large bowl: flour, bran, porridge oats, baking powder and salt
2. In a separate bowl beat together: sugar, egg, zest, juice and melted butter
3. Pour liquid ingredients into the dry ones and stir until just combined, adding the berries towards the end. The batter can have lumps but there should be no pockets of dry flour
4. Spoon into muffin cases (about 3/4 full should work, and produce nice full muffins)
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes until tops are golden brown and the muffins spring back when you poke them gently

Tags: baking, Christmas, christmas baking, homemade christmas, Muffin, recipe, sweet things