Cranberry Orange Muffins Recipe
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This easy bakery-style Cranberry Orange Muffins recipe makes such moist, delicious, muffins bursting with bright flavor. Drizzled with a simple sweet orange glaze, these muffins are crowd favorites and perfect for the holidays and weekend brunch.
These Cranberry Orange Muffins are easy, delicious and perfect for breakfast and brunch. Drizzled with a decadent sweet orange glaze made from just 2 ingredients, they are even more special to serve for the holidays and family gatherings. But don’t save these muffins or glaze for special occasions – they are so simple to make and always a favorite!
Why you’ll love these Cranberry Orange Muffins!
Cranberries – and oranges – add such a bright, juicy flavor to so many delicious baked treats during the fall and winter – especially during the holidays! And these Cranberry Orange Muffins most certainly showcase the best combination of these flavors! They are the perfect combination of tartness from cranberries and oranges with moist, buttery sweetness from the bakery-style muffin. Simple, easy perfection!
This cranberry orange muffin recipe is an easy family favorite that I’m sure you’ll love! While I love to serve them for brunch, they also make an excellent, quick, and easy dessert.
What You’ll Love About This Recipe
- Incredible Flavor: Tart cranberries and orange zest combine to create a rich, vibrant flavor in every bite!
- Glaze Makes Extra Special: The drizzle of orange glaze gives these muffins an extra touch, making them even more special on holidays (or any day!).
- Simple Ingredients: Real ingredients you recognize.
Ingredients for Cranberry Orange Muffins
Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full listing of ingredients, instructions, notes, and estimated nutritional information.
- All-Purpose Flour
- Baking Powder: Helps the muffins to rise.
- Salt: Enhances the sweet and tart flavors. I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt. If you substitute with Morton’s Kosher salt, fine sea salt, or table salt, you will only need half the amount.
- Cranberries: Use fresh, frozen, or dried. You use fewer dried cranberries than fresh or frozen ones. If using dried cranberries, use unsweetened ones.
- Butter: Softened to room temperature. See How to Soften Butter in a Pinch if needed.
- Eggs: Bind the muffins together, giving them their bakery taste and texture.
- Vanilla Extract: I use my homemade vanilla extract, but you can use any quality, pure vanilla extract.
- Orange zest: The zest of one orange adds a bright flavor to muffins.
- Milk: You’ll use a half cup.
- Orange Glaze (optional): Mix a couple of tablespoons of Orange Juice with Confectioner’s Sugar for drizzling over warm muffins.
How to Make this Cranberry Orange Muffin Recipe
These bakery-style muffins with simple glaze are easy to make. The fresh orange zest brings out the bright, juicy citrus flavor.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and prepare muffin tins.
- Sift together the dry baking ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Prepare the cranberries in a separate bowl: toss together the fresh or frozen cranberries with 2 teaspoons of flour to coat. Set aside. Skip this step if using dried cranberries.
- Mix the wet ingredients in a separate large mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer: Cream together butter and sugar until lightened in color, or about 3 minutes. Add egg, one at a time. Mix in vanilla and orange zest.
- Gently fold in the flour mixture (dry ingredients), alternating with the milk. Stir until just combined. Fold in cranberries.
- Scoop mixture into prepared muffin tins and bake about 30 minutes. While the muffins are baking, make the glaze.
- Once baked, let muffins cool slightly in muffin tin. Then place on the serving platter or plate, and drizzle with Orange Glaze. Serve warm and enjoy. (They are also delicious cooled.)
Recipe Success Tips
- Room-temperature ingredients: Bring your butter, eggs, and milk to room temperature so they fully incorporate into the muffin batter.
- Measure your flour correctly: Weigh your flour to the correct measurement on a kitchen scale or spoon and level the sifted flour into your measuring cup.
- Check for doneness: Insert a toothpick or skewer into the center of a muffin to check for doneness. If it comes out clean, the muffins have finished baking.
Storage Tips
- Store: Once cooled completely, they can be stored underneath a cake dome for 3 to 4 days at room temperature.
- Freeze: Place cooked, cooled muffins onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place in the freezer for 30 – 45 minutes so each muffin freezes individually. (You can freeze unglazed or glazed – if I know ahead I’m freezing, I wait to glaze right before serving). Transfer frozen muffins into a zip-top freezer-safe bag or other freezer-safe containers and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw completely before serving.
- Reheat/Serve: Wrap muffins with foil and reheat at 350 degrees for 10 minutes to serve warm. They can also be served at room temperature. Glaze, if desired, after thawing/reheating.
How To Prepare Fresh Cranberries for Baking
To prepare fresh or frozen cranberries (not necessary with dried cranberries) to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of your muffins as they bake:
- Toss fresh or frozen cranberries with a bit of all-purpose flour, as directed in the recipe.
- Then you’ll gently fold them into the muffin batter at the appropriate step in the recipe. The muffins will then have cranberries throughout.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, you may use frozen cranberries. Use the same amount of frozen cranberries as you would fresh.
Yes. Use unsweetened dried cranberries. You will use less of them as specified in the recipe.
Toss fresh or frozen cranberries with about 2 tsp of all-purpose flour in a separate bowl, then gently fold them into the batter as directed in the recipe.
Are you looking for more easy brunch favorites? You’ll love my French Toast, Bacon Egg Cups, and Buttermilk Pancakes!
More Favorite Muffin Recipes
More Muffin Recipes
Here’s my Cranberry Orange Muffins recipe. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
Cranberry Orange Muffins Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour , + 2 teaspoons (2.5 g) for coating fresh cranberries, if used
- 1½ teaspoons (6 g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (1.4 g) kosher salt
- 2 cups (198 g) fresh cranberries , or 1 cup (114 g) dried cranberries
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup (198 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large (100 g) eggs, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons (9.3 g) vanilla extract
- (6-9 g) zest of 1 orange
- ½ cup (113.5 g) milk, room temperature
Orange Glaze:
- 2 tablespoons (34 g) orange juice
- 1 cup (113 g) confectioner’s sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375º F. Spray muffin tins with bakers spray or coat well with shortening or butter and flour, making sure to discard any excess flour from the tins after coating.
- Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Toss together fresh cranberries and 2 teaspoons of flour to coat cranberries in a separate bowl. Set aside. If using dried cranberries, simply skip this step.
- Cream together butter and sugar until lightened in color, about 3 minutes. Add an egg, one at a time, taking care to fully incorporate before adding the other. Mix in vanilla and orange zest.
- Gently fold in flour mixture, alternating with milk. Stir until just combined. Fold in cranberries (fresh or dried) and scoop mixture into prepared muffin tins, filling about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 30 minutes.
- Prepare orange glaze topping for muffins while the muffins are baking by stirring together until well-combined.
- Once muffins have baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly in the muffin tin. Then, remove each muffin and drizzle with orange glaze. Place onto a plate to finish cooling or serve slightly warm.
Notes
- Store: Once cooled completely, they can be stored underneath a cake dome for 3 to 4 days at room temperature.
- Freeze: Place cooked, cooled muffins onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place in the freezer for 30 – 45 minutes so each muffin freezes individually. (You can freeze unglazed or glazed – if I know ahead I’m freezing, I wait to glaze right before serving). Transfer frozen muffins into a zip-top freezer-safe bag or other freezer-safe containers and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw completely before serving.
- Reheat/Serve: Wrap muffins with foil and reheat at 350 degrees for 10 minutes to serve warm. They can also be served at room temperature. Glaze, if desired, after thawing/reheating.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Enjoy!
Robyn xo
From the Add a Pinch recipe archives. Originally published 2013.
Just wondering if I can substitute the orange for lemon? Would it be the same measurements as the orange?
Tammy, I haven’t made these with lemon instead of the orange juice but others have and said it was delicious. You would use the same measurements.
Great recipe. I only had mandarins on hand, but the zest of two of them worked well. Mandarin juice also worked nicely for the glaze. I also used half and half instead of milk. I found that the muffins came out a little crispy at 375 so I’ll probably try to bake them at 350 or 360 next time. Maybe my pan is darker than the writer’s.
These muffins sound amazing with mandarins, Alex. Sometimes different ovens will bake foods faster than others, too. Next time, I would reduce the baking time.
Great recipe. I did make 2 changes. I know…I know. That means I didn’t follow the recipe. We try to make better choices. So 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat all purpose flour.
Soaked 1 cup of dried cranberries in orange juice. I think the extra liquid in the dried cranberry allowed for the whole wheat flour needing more moisture.
For this recipe, do you use 1/2 cup + 1 stick of butter? A little bit confused with this particular ingredient listed in the recipe.
Otherwise everything sounds delicious 🙂
Sandra, you use 1/2 cup butter which is 1 stick. Hope you enjoy the muffins.
I made a batch of these a few weeks ago and was well pleased. I just took another dozen of these beautifully tasty muffins out of the oven. They are now glazed and waiting to be eaten. YUMMY!!
Patricia, thank you. So happy you like these muffins.
These were delicious! I used fresh cranberries and they were SO plump and juicy! I didn’t have an orange to zest, so I added a splash of orange extract to the batter. I added walnuts and they were identical in taste and texture to the ones I get at my favorite restaurant. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not that I can now make my favorite muffins at home! LOL
I’m so happy you enjoyed these muffins, Sherry!
These are my favorite flavor for muffins. I’ve tried several recipes and none have come out perfect. These were delicious. They had the right balance of cranberry to orange. The only thing I will do differently next time is to add a bit more zest to please other people in the house.
Thanks, Vicki! I’m so glad you love these muffins.
Very easy, and so good I didn’t even need the orange glaze! I used frozen cranberries and they worked perfectly. The muffins rise up nicely and have a nice dense texture and slightly crispy edge. So yummy! I will use muffin pan liners next time, as they were a bit tricky to get out of the pans.
Thanks, Laura. I’m so happy you enjoyed these muffins.
I made these yesterday and they are delicious, I have never baked with cranberry’s before but I will again.
I LOVE this recipe! The muffins came out perfect and were oh so delicious. I followed the recipe as outlined except I substituted 1/4 milk for fresh squeezed orange juice.