The Best Cranberry Orange Muffins

When I say these are the best cranberry orange muffins, I don’t take that lightly. I have had many cranberry muffins over the years, and they’ve never been quite what I wanted. Not fluffy enough, no streusel topping, and not enough orange flavor are some of my complaints. I have many recipes here for healthier muffins, like my chocolate chip banana bread turned into muffins and my chocolate sweet potato muffins. But these muffins are bakery-level muffins. They are tall and fluffy with plenty of streusel topping and an orange glaze. I’ll share a few tips in this post to make sure your muffins turn out just as delicious. Whether you make these for Christmas morning or for anytime, they’re perfect with a cup of coffee or tea and an absolute must while cranberries are in season.

How to Get the Perfect Cranberry Orange Muffins

• Bake at a higher temperature first. This is key! If you’ve ever seen a muffin recipe requiring the muffins to bake at a higher temperature for a few minutes before decreasing in temperature, it’s to activate the leavening agents. Doing this makes sure that you’ll get a puffy domed muffin top and the keeps the interior texture of the muffin nice and fluffy.
• Tulip muffin liners. This may seem small, but I find that using these muffin liners with their extra height allows the muffins to rise better and contain the streusel topping instead of losing that topping in a mess all over your muffin tin.
• Orange flavor, three ways. Is this overkill? I’ll let you be the judge. But using orange juice, orange zest, and orange extract ensures the orange flavor is nice and bright.
• Almond extract. If you’ve been here a while, you know that I add almond extract to all my baked goods and I’m not making an exception here. Just a little bit doesn’t necessarily add a lot of almond flavor, but it adds a warmth and buttery flavor that elevates any baked good.
• Make sure everything is at room temperature. If you don’t, adding the cold eggs to the creamed butter and sugar can cause the softened butter to solidify again and it will affect your muffin texture.
• Don’t overmix. With cakes and biscuits, overmixing causes them to be tough. When you add the dry ingredients, mix until just barely combined. The rest of them will be mixed when you fold in the cranberries.
• Don’t skip the streusel! This recipe makes a decent amount of streusel, and you should definitely use it all. The tulip muffin liners make sure the streusel topping stays contained and every bit of the buttery brown sugar topping ends up on the muffin where you want it. Muffins like blueberry, cranberry, and other fruit muffins are just better with a streusel topping.

Ingredients for Cranberry Orange Muffins

• Sugar: Brown sugar, granulated sugar, and powdered sugar are all used in this recipe. There’s brown sugar in the muffin batter and the streusel topping, granulated sugar in the muffins, and powdered sugar in the glaze.
• Flour: Regular all-purpose flour is what we are using here! It’s in both the muffin batter and in the streusel topping.
• Eggs: Make sure your eggs are at room temperature for this recipe. Adding cold eggs, to the creamed butter and sugar will solidify the softened butter and you won’t get the results you want.
• Sour cream: I do find I can tell a difference between sour cream and Greek yogurt in muffins. I like Greek yogurt in my healthier muffins, but for these bakery-style cranberry orange muffins, I recommend sour cream. Like the eggs, make sure they’re at room temperature before baking.
• Butter: Softened, room temperature goes into the batter and melted butter goes into the streusel topping.
• Cinnamon: You may not expect to see cinnamon in a cranberry orange muffin, but the warmth compliments both the cranberry and orange so well. A little goes a long way!
• Extracts: Vanilla, almond, and orange. Vanilla and almond extracts are a must in all my baked goods, and I find that cranberry orange muffins don’t have enough orange flavor without the orange extract as well.
• Orange juice and orange zest. In addition to the orange extract, these provide orange flavor, but the orange zest also adds a great texture into the muffin batter.
• Fresh cranberries: I stock up when these are in season so I can bake this Christmas recipe long after Christmas.
• Baking powder and baking soda: Both leavening agents work together to give you the perfect domed tops and moist muffin texture.
• Salt: To compliment the sweetness!

How to Make Cranberry Orange Muffins

• First, make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature. Then preheat your oven to 425 degrees and place 12 tulip muffin liners into a muffin tin.
• Make your batter! Using a stand mixer or a hand mixer and large bowl, cream together the butter and the brown and granulated sugars. Then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Then add the vanilla, almond, and orange extracts and beat again. Scrape down the sides of the mixer, then add your sour cream and orange zest and beat to combine.
• In a separate medium bowl, whisk together flour baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix for a minute or two as it starts to combine, then drizzle in the milk and orange juice while the mixer is running. Beat until JUST combined, do not overmix!
• Fold in the fresh cranberries and set the batter aside.
• Make the streusel topping by mixing together the brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Then add in the melted butter and mix until the streusel is the consistency of wet sand.
• Divide the batter in between the muffin liners and top with the streusel topping.
• Bake the muffins at 425 degrees for 5 minutes, then decrease the oven temperature to 350 for about 20 minutes.
• When the muffins have cooled, whisk together a simple glaze of powdered sugar and orange juice and drizzle over them.