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Vegan Orange-Cranberry Muffins
January 4th, 2010 Madhuram Posted in Low Fat Baking, Muffins/Cupcakes, Vegan Baking | 
| 18 Comments »
I have used a lot of dried cranberries while baking but am picky about the fresh ones. So far I have tried only one recipe using fresh cranberries. It is this cranberry bars recipe from the Joy of Baking website. Although it did come out well and tasted good, somehow I did not develop a liking for this beautiful red fruit. I think part of the reason is my quirky food likings. I usually don’t like sweet and sour or sweet and spicy together. A dish has to be either fully sweet or fully spicy. So its obvious that I do not like the combination of tart cranberries and sweet in baked goods. Anyhow I decided to give it a shot once again this cranberry season.
Lately I have been seeing a lot of Indianized cranberry recipes. Cranberry rice, cranberry pickle, cranberry dal, etc. just to mention a few. So I decided to try at least that if at all not baking with cranberries. Recently I also got hooked to the Taste of Home website. I have got a baking book published by that magazine and am a fan for those recipes. I have had a 100% success rate with those recipes. I don’t know what stopped me from visiting their website all these days. A couple of days back I borrowed a Taste of Home Cookies book from the library. It has 623 recipes and I was so tempted to get one for myself. That’s when I decided to check out their website to see if they have free recipes online and I was overjoyed to find the same. I looked for some cranberry recipes in there and bookmarked this cranberry muffins recipe. It was a simple straight forward recipe and the egg substitution was easy too. I decided to use flax seed meal as the egg substitute like I used for the vegan cranberry quick bread recipe and it turned out great.
For the past couple of months I have been incorporating a lot of whole grains and whole grain flours while baking. So I decided to used plain all purpose flour this time. Partly the reason being, my phobia for cranberries. Since I was not sure if I would like cranberries I didn’t want to use whole wheat flour and mess it up further. Surprisingly these cranberry muffins did not fail me. It tasted pretty good with mild sweetness, occasional tartness from the cranberries here and there and a nice crunch from the pecans. I would definitely try this recipe again but would increase the quantity of sugar a little bit.
Vegan Cranberry Muffins
Dry Ingredients:
Wet Ingredients:
Yield: A dozen cranberry muffins.
Procedure:
1. Preheat the oven at 375F/190C. Grease or line a muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients and keep it aside.
3. In a blender/food processor blend together the flax seed powder and water until its nice and frothy.
4. Measure orange juice in a liquid measuring mug, add water until you reach 1 cup measure in the mug. To this also add the flax seed mixture, orange zest and stir together well.
5. Pour the liquid ingredients to the flour mixture and mix until just moistened. Fold in the cranberries too. Do not overmix.
6. Spoon in the batter in the greased muffin tins. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Move the muffin tin to a cooling rack and let it cool for just 5 minutes. Then remove the muffins from the pan and cool it completely on a wire rack.
My Notes:
1. The quantity of sugar mentioned in the original recipe was 3/4th cup and I used the same, but felt that the muffins could have been a little more sweet. So you can increase the quantity to 1 cup.
2. I always prefer freshly squeezed orange juice in baking recipes. I have found out in my experience that the store bought orange juice is slightly bitter and the bitterness reflects in the baked goods too.
3. If you wish to use frozen cranberries, do not thaw it. Use it directly from the freezer otherwise the berries will start bleeding turning the batter red.
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March 18th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
I try now…………..thanks for your recipe………
March 16th, 2010 at 9:03 am
hi Dear
Tomorrow will try the receipe. and frankly m very eager to have it, u know my mouth is wateringgggggggg i know it would be yummyy.
March 14th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Tried this with some variants and my daughter’s reaction “Whoa, that muffin’s good”
So what did we do?
~ Used a multigrain/baking flour mix
~ Only used 3/4 cup sugar
~ Omitted nuts so that the kids could bring these to school
~ Forgot the oil
~ Replaced the cranberries with the frozen raspberries we had on hand
~ Replaced flax powder for the chia powder (Salba brand) we had on hand
~ Opted for lemon zest instead
Admittedly, I completely forgot the oil but the recipe is no worse for the wear. Perhaps I’ll make this the next time ’round with a light tasting extra virgin olive oil.
It’s a great addition to a tea break or spring brunch! And it presents so well what with all the color!
Thanks!
You’re welcome Lisa. I’m enjoying the fact that it turned out good even after you forgot the oil.
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Madhuram,
I tried the muffins last night and they came out a little hard and stuck to the liners. I did spray the liners with cooking spray. Also despite the 1 cup brown sugar they tasted a little more tangy than sweet. Where did I go wrong? The muffins were not soft at all and looked a little undercooked.
wondering if it was the baking soda or the flax seed.
I’m wondering too Malini! Did you use baking soda or powder, because I have mentioned BP and you have written BS in the comment?
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:50 am
Hi Madhu,
I’d love to try this recipe for the brunch I’m going to host but I can’t find flaxseed powder in Caracas. Can I skip it?
Thanks for your reply.
//mindy
Mindy, I’m sorry that I couldn’t get back to you any sooner. I think 1/2 cup of yogurt/buttermilk should work as well.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Very excited to try your recipes.Especially because they are egg-less and it makes me very happy some one coming up with such fabulous recipes without eggs.Thanks for sharing.
Welcome to my blog BB.
January 4th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Muffins look great – am definitely going to try them as I love cranberries.
I bake only with whole wheat flour; I don’t understand why you feel “I didn’t want to use whole wheat flour and mess it up further”–once I got used to whole wheat flour (or any whole grain flour), I have never looked back.
Also, regarding sugar, I am learning that using no sugar (or very very less) gives me an opportunity to taste the ingredients and texture of the baked good in a more intense way.
Anu, I too am a great fan of whole wheat pastry flour, but I was not sure if I would like cranberries. So didn’t not want to experiment too much at once. Now that I know that I can tolerate cranberries, the next time I will try these muffins with whole wheat pastry flour.
January 4th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Hi Madhuram,
The muffins look yummy and i am very tempted to try them out. One question though – i dont get fresh cranberries (at least i havent seen any) where i live. Would it be ok if dried cranberries were used instead?
Thanks!
Yamini
Thanks Yamini. You could use dried cranberries as well. I think in that case you need not increase the quantity of sugar as I have mentioned because the dried ones are already sweetened.