These festive cranberry muffins make for a delightful, just-sweet-enough, good-for-you breakfast muffin you should enjoy year-round. Transform these into dessert in a snap by drizzling them liberally with maple butter!

‘Tis the season… when I start hoarding baked goods for the holidays! I’m the kind of person who gets into the holiday spirit as soon as Halloween passes. It’s never too early for me to deck the halls—I’m not even annoyed at holiday music playing all November long! Of course, one of my favorite holiday activities is baking. In early December, I start making cookies and bite-sized cakes, and the desserts I choose to make are motivated by practicality. I pick recipes that withstand freezing well so I can bake in advance and have a freezer full of delicious treats ready when Christmas arrives.

This recipe on its own is a healthy breakfast muffin that you will probably want to make year-round. But during the holidays, anything with cranberries in it feels especially festive, don’t you think? 

These maple cranberry muffins are great as part of a brunch spread, as a well-deserved snack after spending time in the snowy outdoors, or—if you want to serve them for dessert—drizzled generously with maple butter.

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Maple and Cranberry Muffins

These festive cranberry muffins make for a delightful, just-sweet-enough, good-for-you breakfast muffin you should enjoy year-round.

Prep Time:15 minutes mins

Cook Time:15 minutes mins

Total Time:30 minutes mins

Servings 12 muffins

Author Marie Asselin, FoodNouveau.com

Ingredients

US Customary / Metric

• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• ½ cup granulated maple sugar, or ½ cup (100 g) regular granulated sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp kosher salt, or fine sea salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• ¾ cup fresh cranberries, or frozen unthawed cranberries, each berry cut in half
• ½ cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped
• ½ cup chopped walnuts
• ½ cup granola cereal of your choice, or 1/2 cup (40 g) old-fashioned oats

To serve (optional)

• maple butter (see note)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a muffin pan with paper cups.
• In a large bowl, whisk the flours, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. In a second bowl, whisk the milk, eggs, oil, and vanilla extract together. Pour this mixture over the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Fold in the fresh cranberries, dried cranberries, and walnuts.
• Divide the muffin batter between the muffin cups. Sprinkle each muffin with granola, pressing lightly so the cereal sticks to the batter. Bake 15 to 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in one of the muffins comes out clean. Let the cranberry muffins cool to room temperature.
• SERVING: Enjoy the cranberry muffins at room temperature, or gently reheated in a low oven. To turn the muffins into dessert, serve with maple butter or maple glaze (see note).
• STORAGE: Store the cranberry muffins in an airtight container for up to 3 days at room teperature. You can also refrigerate the muffins for 1 week, or freeze for up to 1 month.
• NOTE: If you can’t find maple butter, make a maple glaze: simply whisk 1/2 cup (60 g) powdered sugar with 3 tbsp (45 ml) maple syrup until smooth, then drizzle over the cranberry muffins.

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This post was created in partnership with Baker’s Secret and World Kitchen. They offered me monetary compensation and a set of baking pans to develop a delicious recipe using their products. As always, companies never dictate what recipes I create, or the opinions I express. I only use products I genuinely believe in. For more information about sponsored posts, please read my Disclosure Policy. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that keep Food Nouveau running!