As the weather is getting warmer, I always enjoy a glass of cold freshly squeezed orange juice. It is naturally sweet, healthy and full of vitamins. What if these oranges can be incorporated into something sweet and delicious? 🍊🍊🍊
Having some oranges sitting in my fruit basket, I decided to bake some muffins… a classic combo of oranges and cranberries. I would opt for fresh cranberries if they are available. However, it is very difficult to get them here. Therefore, I used unsweetened dried cranberries, which adds a good amount of tartness to these muffins and complements the sweet orangey taste. The muffins are spiced with cinnamon and cloves, and chopped walnuts are also mixed in for an extra crunch.
These muffins are suitable for vegans as there is no egg in the batter. I used mashed banana instead of an egg. The banana is not as distinctive as one might expect as this is covered by the aroma and taste of cinnamon and cloves. However, banana adds to the sweetness and also helps to bind the batter. You can omit the banana and substitute it by a flax egg (or an egg for a non-vegan recipe). I would then suggest to adjust the amount of sugar to make up for the natural sweetness of the banana.
I would definitely bake these muffins again. They are soft, moist, light and really scrumptious, making them quite hard to resist! The fresh fruity taste makes them ideal to enjoy on the upcoming warmer days.
Oranges and sultanas are also a great combo and in case you do not have/like cranberries, sultanas can be a great substitute. This will result in slightly sweeter muffins since sultanas are not tangy like the cranberries. I have done this before and I can confirm that no muffins went to waste! 😀
For more muffin recipes, click here.
Happy baking! 👩🍳
Vegan Cranberry Orange Muffins
Soft, fruity, tangy and scrumptious muffins with a nutty crunch
Ingredients
- 250g all purpose flour
- 120g dark soft brown sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 70g vegetable oil
- 245g orange juice, freshly squeezed
- 90g ripe banana, mashed
- 2 tbsp orange zest
- 120g dried cranberries
- 100g walnuts, chopped
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Prepare the muffin trays.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine together the flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Make sure that there are no lumps of sugar.
- In another bowl, whisk together the oil, orange juice, mashed banana and orange zest.
- Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in the cranberries and walnuts but avoid over-mixing the batter.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin trays.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Let them cool slightly in the muffin trays before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
