Cranberry White Chocolate muffins are light, fluffy, peppered with dried cranberries and white chocolate chips in amongst an orange flavoured chocolate cake. Enjoy these muffins plain and unadorned or dusted with a little icing sugar, they really don’t need anything more.

Who doesn’t love a muffin? These aren’t just any chocolate muffin, these are full of white chocolate chips and tangy dried cranberies. This is a quick muffin recipe that is loved by adults and children alike. They take just 5 minutes to make as long as you’ve everything to hand and then 20 minutes to bake.

Whether you consider them a chocolate muffin, as they have a cocoa flavoured sponge or a white chocolate chip muffin, they make a wonderful sweet treat at the end of a meal or as a mid-morning or afternoon energy boost. They’re quite delicious and I’m sure you’re going to love them.

Features of this Cranberry White Chocolate Muffins Recipe

Flavour – It can be disappointing to bite into a muffin and find that there’s not much inside. Not so with these muffins. These muffins are full of flavour. Dried cranberries give little bursts of tangy flavour alongside the sweetness of the white chocolate chips. Both flavours are wrapped up in an orange flavoured chocolate muffin. I’m confident that this is going to become a favourite recipe in your home.

Texture – They have that lovely muffin texture that we all love, denser than a cupcake but still light and airy.

Difficulty – Like most muffin recipes this one is unfussy and is made as a batter. The batter is made by simply mixing the wet ingredients into the dry ones and combining them. There’s no fuss involved. You just stir until there are no dry ingredients clinging to the side of the bowl. That’s as difficult as it gets. Spoon the mixture into the waiting muffin pan and bake. Making them is easy, simple and fast. This recipe is suited to novice bakers.

Method for making Cranberry White chocolate muffins

The amount of the ingredients and the detailed method is specified in the recipe below, this is just a quick walkthrough of what’s involved.

In true muffin making tradition, the dry ingredients are sifted together in one bowl and the wet ingredients are mixed together in another. The ingredients can be prepared in advance but they should not be mixed together until immediately before the muffins are baked.

This is also true of this recipe. The wet ingredients are added to the dry, all together at the same time and then stirred with a spatula or a metal or wooden spoon. Ingredients are merely stirred just enough to combine them together. They are not beaten or whisked, only stirred. You only need to eliminate any dry bits of flour. The batter may look a little lumpy but that is just fine.

Over mixing can break down the gluten in the flour and then you end up with a disappointing muffin so be gentle with your muffin batter. Only stir until the wet and the dry ingredients are combined. As a guide, the final mixing (wet into dry) may only take about 30 seconds, which is hardly any time at all.

Tips for success

Measure your ingredients accurately for the best results. Use a set of digital scales if at all possible. 

Don’t overmix the batter. Only mix the ingredients together so that there are no dry floury bits left in the bowl. The batter may look a little lumpy but that is absolutely ok.

Do not use a mixer for the final mixing. If you do, you risk overmixing the batter which has a detrimental effect on the flour. It can break down the gluten and potentially make your muffins a little dense and disappointing. Use a wooden or metal spoon. A metal spoon can be particularly good at scraping ingredients off the sides and bottom of the bowl.

Bake as soon as possible after the dry and the wet ingredients are combined. If you leave the batter to sit whilst you do other things, you risk activating the raising agents in the batter. These may become exhausted by the time you do bake them which will potentially make them a little heavy.

Set your oven temperature accurately and use an oven thermometer if you have one. It’s surprising how much domestic ovens can vary in how precise they are.

Fill the muffins cup liners or silicone cups to ¾ full. This means that the muffins will rise beautifully and not overflow to give slightly odd tops. But even if they do, they’ll taste wonderful.

Allow them to cool fully before decorating with any kinds of icing or melted chocolate toppings. Otherwise, you may find that it all becomes a bit messy. They’ll taste wonderful but it may not be quite what you intended.

Variations

These easy chocolate muffins are wonderful just as they are, fresh out of the oven. However, if you want to ring a few changes these are things that I’ve tried successfully with this recipe.

• Add a simple icing glaze.
  • Mix 3oz (85g) icing sugar with 2-3 teaspoons of orange juice and use to ice the muffins once they’re out of the oven and cooled slightly.
• Add 75g chopped pecans to the batter for a nice contrast in texture. Pecans are such a delicious sweet nut that goes so well with chocolate.
• Substitute dark or milk chocolate chips for the white chocolate. They taste wonderful.
• Add the finely grated zest of an orange to the batter. This really emphasises the orangey flavours.
• Omit the orange extract if you don’t really like that mix of chocolate and orange flavours or you don’t have orange extract to hand.
• Drizzle with melted white chocolate for an interesting and delicious finish.
  • Melt 50g of white chocolate in a microwave in five-second bursts. Stir until it is completely melted and then drizzle thinly over the tops of the muffins.

Storing Muffins

All muffins are at their very best if eaten fresh. They’ll be light, fluffy and aromatic… delicious. However, not everyone can dispatch a dozen homemade muffins in one sitting, not even ones are delicious as these Cranberry White Chocolate Muffins, so …

• Store in an airtight container and eat within two to three days.

If this isn’t possible then freeze some away for later. These muffins freeze successfully provided that they haven’t been iced.

• Freeze in air-tight containers or zip lock bags. Remove from the freezer when needed and thaw on the work surface. Warming them briefly in the oven or microwave will restore these muffins beautifully.

If you like these then you may like these…

• Blueberry Muffins
• Lemon and Poppy Seeds Muffins
• Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Rock Cakes
• Castella Cake
• Apple Cinnamon Muffins and Streusel Topping
• Blueberry Orange Muffins

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