Christmas Muffins – Cranberries, Pecans & Orange

These cranberries, pecans and orange muffins are ready for Christmas

I’m totally getting into the Christmas mood, first with the Christmas Biscuits, and now these muffins with a Christmas concoction of cranberries, pecans, raisins and orange. I really love the flavours of everything combined in this muffin, especially the surprising tinge of orange. Enjoy these muffins with a cuppa hot chocolate for breakfast, an afternoon tea party or tea time. If you have extras, freeze them in ziplock bags and toast them in the oven for a few minutes till they are warm whenever you want a muffin or two.

Ingredients
(Makes about a dozen muffins with cupcake liner measuring 5cm in diameter by 3cm in height )

- 1 1/2 cups (190g) plain flour
- 1 1/2 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup (225g) caster sugar
- grated zest of 1/2 unwaxed orange
- 40g pecans, finely chopped (set aside 10g)
- 50g cranberries (you can use fresh, frozen or dried), finely chopped (set aside 10g) – see cooking note 1
- 50g raisins
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) milk
- 65 gms butter, cut to small pieces and melted at room temperature
- icing sugar (for decoration – optional)

You also need:
- sieve
- large bowl & wooden spoon
- disposable baking cases – see cooking note 2
- muffin baking tray

Directions
1. Sift flour, baking powder and sugar together, and mix well.
2. Add in milk, eggs and butter and stir until just blended (and lumpy). Be careful not to over mix as it will result in a tough texture.
3. Fold in the grated orange zest, raisins, 30g chopped pecans and 40g chopped cranberries into the mixture.
4. Place baking cases in muffin tins. Spoon the mixture into the cases (each about 2/3 filled). Top with a small amount of chopped pecans and chopped cranberries.
4. Bake for roughly 20 minutes in preheated oven of 200C (400F) or until slightly golden brown. Allow to rest for several minutes on a wire rack. Use a sieve to dust icing sugar over the muffins to decorate if desired.

Cooking Notes
1. I used dried cranberries which I bought from Phoon Huat, Singapore (“Red Man” brand).
2. The silver baking cups I used are bought from Daiso, Singapore and they are labelled as “aluminium dish cup size 8 – 216 sheets” for S$2. If you use this particular baking case, line them with 2 outer layers of ordinary paper cases because the aluminium one on its own is too filmsy to hold the batter during baking. After baking, discard the outer sheets. Also, you have to reduce the baking time to roughly 17 minutes (till lightly golden brown) because these cases are quite small and hence the batter bakes faster.

The batter before baking

More Muffins Recipes
- Berry Nice Muffins
- Blueberry Muffins
- Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients Used butter • cranberry • egg • flour • milk • orange • pecan • sugar