Cranberry Orange Muffin

Diwali is over and now its time for Thanks Giving. Even though we don't celebrate it but with all the baking in the air, I couldn't resist. So, I was roaming around in the grocery store few days back and saw these fresh cranberries. I thought why can't I try baking with them instead of the costly dried ones. And that's how I started searching for recipes using fresh cranberries. And you know what... I didn't get anything to my liking. And so started my new experiment, I had some sugar syrup left from gulab jamuns I prepared for Diwali. I cooked my berries in it and tadaa... I had sweetened cranberries ready for my muffin. You can try this recipe with dried sweetened berries or you can follow my method to sweeten them (mentioned in tips section). But, to be honest.. I would go with dried ones in future. I still have a bag sitting in my refrigerator and don't know what to do with it.:( Anyways, I will figure out something. Meanwhile, here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups
• Baking Powder - 1 1/2 tsp
• Baking Soda - 2/3 tsp
• Condensed Milk - 2 Tbsp
• Vanilla Extract - 1/4 tsp
• Orange juice - 2/3 cup
• Granulated Sugar - 1/4 cup
• Sweetened Cranberry - 1/2 cup
• Butter/Oil - 2 tbsp

Method:

• Preheat oven at 350 degree Fahrenheit.
• Sift all purpose flour, baking soda and baking powder. 
• Mix condensed milk, vanilla extract, orange juice, oil and sugar in a bowl.
• Now add the mixture prepared above to flour mix and whisk. Make sure there are no lumps in the batter. Adjust sweetness at this stage as per your taste.
• Mix in the cranberries.
• Now arrange cup cake liners in a tray and fill with batter till 2/3 of the liner. It makes about 12 muffins. 
• Bake it for 22 minutes at 350 degree Fahrenheit. Test with a toothpick to make sure they are baked. Bake for another few minutes if not done.
• Take out the tray and let the muffins cool on a cooling rack.

Tip:

• To sweeten fresh cranberries, prepare sugar syrup using 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water. Let it boil for about 5 mins then add cranberries and cook for another 5 mins on low heat. By this time the syrup will be almost dried. While adding these berries to the recipe make sure your batter is not very sweet as the berries will have some sugar syrup with them. I had sugar syrup left from gulab jamuns so I used that.
• You can use melted butter but I prefer using refined oils with lesser fat. Make sure the oil you are using doesn't have strong taste. I used saffola. 

Till my next post,
Bye n keep budding.