These orange cranberry muffins, made with frozen cranberries, the zest of one navel orange, melted butter, and sour cream, are dense, moist muffin perfection.
Because these muffins received an exuberant ten on ten from my food-loving, food-critic-in-the-making nine-year-old son, I feel confident describing them as the best. He is never overly generous with ratings for the sake of pleasing me. My six-year-old daughter, on the other hand, lives for making me happy and as a result, her “ratings” are far less reliable.
About these Orange Cranberry Muffins
When it comes to muffin texture, these muffins are where it’s at—chewy, dense, not too crumbly, and not cakey. They’re also moist and full of flavor, using melted butter (yes!), sour cream, vanilla, an egg, and the zest of one navel orange.
The resulting batter is very thick and studded with cranberries. I use frozen (not defrosted), but you can also use fresh if you have it on hand. This recipe is not overly sweet, using only half a cup of sugar.
How to make orange cranberry muffins
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line muffin tins with parchment papers.
- In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl add butter and melt on low heat in the microwave. Once it begins to melt, give it a good stir to melt the unmelted pieces. This will help to keep the melted butter closer to cool/lukewarm.
- Add sugar to the butter and stir to combine. Add in remaining wet ingredients, vanilla, sour cream, egg, and zest. Whisk until smooth.
- Add frozen (not defrosted) or fresh cranberries to the flour mixture to coat.
- Add the flour, cranberry mixture to the wet and using a spatula, fold over/stirring lightly until just combined. The batter will be very thick and sturdy.
- Scoop the batter into the lined muffin tins, filling past the fill line. Because the batter is thick (almost cookie dough-like), I find the best tool for this is an overflowing medium-sized cookie scoop. However you do it, there will be some sticky-fingers—it’s quite unavoidable!
- Optional—at this point, should you wish, sprinkle/douse the muffin tops with a generous pinch of sugar.
- Bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes or until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Recipe substitutes
- In place of sour cream use thick, plain (or vanilla) Greek yogurt or buttermilk.
- Turn these into lemon cranberry muffins in a snap, by swapping the orange zest for lemon zest (one tablespoon).
- And finally, you can swap the melted butter for vegetable oil if that’s what you have on hand.
Recipe notes
This recipe makes 12 large orange cranberry muffins, depending on the size of your scoops. Because the batter is so thick you can fill the muffin tins beyond the fill line (see photos above) and they will not overflow, but instead result in large yummy muffins.
You can, of course, make these smaller and get another few muffins out of the recipe. If you do make them smaller in size, check them around the 20-minute mark.
If you give these orange cranberry muffins a try, let me know in the comments and share your rating. I love to hear from you!
xo Bri
Looking for tasty muffin recipes? Try these favs.
The Best Orange Cranberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup melted butter (cooled)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup sour cream room temperature
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 1 tbsp orange zest ~ zest of one navel orange
- 1 1/2 cup fresh or frozen (not defrosted) cranberries
- extra sugar to top muffins optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line muffin tins with parchment papers.
- In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl add butter and melt on low heat in the microwave. Once it begins to melt, give it a good stir to melt the unmelted pieces. This will help to keep the melted butter closer to cool/lukewarm.
- Add sugar to the butter and stir to combine. Add in remaining wet ingredients, vanilla, sour cream, egg, and zest. Whisk until smooth.
- Add frozen (not defrosted) or fresh cranberries to the flour mixture to coat.
- Add flour, cranberry mixture to the wet and using a spatula, fold over/stirring lightly until just combined. The batter will be very thick and sturdy.
- Scoop the batter into the lined muffin tins, filling past the fill line. Because the batter is thick (almost cookie dough-like), I find the best tool for this is a medium-sized cookie scoop. However you do it, there will be some sticky-fingers—it's quite unavoidable!
- Optional–at this point, should you wish, sprinkle (douse) the muffin tops with a generous pinch of sugar.
- Bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes or until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Notes
Did you make this recipe? Tag @mondaysundaykitchen on Instagram and hashtag it #mondaysundaykitchen!
Really a super recipe! I had some dough leftover and made a “scone” out of it on a small baking sheet right alongside the muffin tin. Because it’s more of a dough than a batter you could get away with baking all of them this way if you wanted. The fresh cranberries were extra large so I chopped them up just a bit and tossed some white sugar on them rather than flour. This is not an overly sweet recipe which makes the muffins very enjoyable with a tiny drizzle of honey. This is a wonderful recipe worth making again and again!
Yay! So glad you enjoyed them, Mary! Love the honey drizzle idea:)) xo Bri
These were delicious although slightly salty for my tastes. I will try reducing salt by half next time, as I understand it shouldn’t prevent them from rising or ruin the flavor. But otherwise moist and super delicious. Thanks for the recipe.
Made he recipe today. They were easy and tasted great. Thank you
Thanks Marilyn! So glad you enjoyed them! xo Bri
I didn’t have fresh or frozen cranberries on hand so rehydrated some dried and added just a little orange juice from the orange I zested. They’re in the oven now. Fingers crossed.
Hey Chris, great idea! How did they turn out? xo Bri
Great recipe! I like that they’re not overly sweet!
Thanks Sarah! xo Bri
Very delicious. I changed the orange zest with lemon and they turned out perfect!
Just a note that this is the best recipe ever..I have tried it with different fruits and even banana and chocolate chips…each and every time if has worked out ..5 stars all the way.
Thanks so much for your comment, Mary! xo Bri
Very tasty! I made a glaze from powdered sugar and juice from one orange and drizzled on top. I will definitely make these again!!
Very good, easy to make and everything on hand. Will make again!
The dough is definitely more like that of a bread and the muffins turned out like English Muffins. Delicious nonetheless.
Thank you,
I made these muffins and my kids loved them. I like them because they are not as sweet as some muffin recipes and I am just about to make them again. Thanks for the recipe. Ps I also added some lemon zest.