CRANBERRY APPLESAUCE MUFFINS

This experiment was started  to lure the client who loves cranberry flavors and is tired of pumpkin by now. I stumbled upon a basic recipe like it, but, as I am prone to do with all recipes, I altered a few things to my taste. Please note that the key to maintaining the tart side of this sweet-tart muffin is using fresh or frozen cranberries, NOT dried or candied.

Chop your cranberries roughly in half or quarters (coarse chopping) for tart flavor that pops! Chop them even smaller if you prefer the flavor to blend a little more. Coat the chopped cranberries in the 2 T flour to keep them from floating to the bottom of the batter in the muffin cups!

A side note while you premeasure those wet ingredients to reach room temperature *wink*: for this recipe, lightly spray the INSIDE of your muffin cups with PAM. Even when cooled, this particular recipe sticks to the cups after cooking. I'm still working on a solution for that one!   

Melt your butter RIGHT before you are ready to pour into the wet mixture. 

When your batter looks about like this, add the cranberries. Adding "fold in" ingredients at this stage (rather than when the mixture is completely combined) will keep the muffins that much more moist/tender. 

 Add the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over the tops of your batter. More topping makes for a more even 'tart-sweet' muffin. Less topping will REALLY make the cranberries stand out!

This batter makes about 5 tall jumbo muffins or 6 nearly flat jumbo muffins. 

CRANBERRY APPLE MUFFINS

BATTER INGREDIENTS:

1 egg

3/4 C milk

3/4 C sweetened applesauce

1/4 C butter, melted

1 3/4 C flour

1 C fresh cranberries, chopped (coarse)

2 T flour (to mix with cranberries)

1/4 C sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

TOPPING:

1/4 C sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400F. Combine flour, sugar, bak. powder, bak.soda, salt in a medium bowl. In seperate bowl, combine milk, egg, applesauce, melted butter. Add egg mixture to flour mixture. Stir until just moistened. Do not overmix (batter will be lumpy). Toss cranberries in a bowl with 2 T flour. Fold into batter. Spoon evenly into lightly sprayed muffin cups. Mix topping ingredients and sprinkle evenly over tops of muffins. Bake 20-25 minutes until slightly golden. Cool on wire rack.