Cranberry Tangerine Muffins

I went to Panera Bread earlier this week and got coffee and a cranberry orange muffin. Yum! It got me thinking about how excited I am that Thanksgiving is next week and how, to me, that was a true "Thanksgiving" muffin!! I immediately started creating my own "Thanksgiving" muffin and this is what I came up with.

Cranberry Tangerine Muffin

Luckily, my grocery store had fresh cranberries, so I bought a few bags with intention of freezing some. I love the colors of the fresh fruit that went into these!

Beautiful, right? I have used dried cranberries in baked goods before and it is always great, but these fresh cranberries gave the muffins such a great tartness! Love at first bite!

Dry:

3/4 C whole wheat flour
3/4 C all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
Wet:
1 egg
2/3 C milk (I used skim)
1/4 C vegetable oil
1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 T fresh tangerine zest (about 3 small tangerines)
Juice from 1 tangerine
Splash of cranberry juice (optional, I just had some on hand)
1 1/4 C Fresh cranberries, cut in half

"Toptional" (Optional Topping)

1/4 C flour
1/4 C oats
1/8 C brown sugar (I used Splenda brown sugar)
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 T canola oil

Preheat oven to 375° F. In a large bowl, sift or mix the dry ingredients together. In another bowl, mix the wet ingredients together. Add the wet to the dry and stir only to combine; do not over mix. In the bowl that you used for your wet ingredients, mix together the 5 "toptional" ingredients, if desired.  Spray your muffin pan with Baker's Joy,* and pour the batter evenly into the 12 cups; sprinkle on the "toptional."

Bake for 17 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. :)

*Baker's Joy is the best stuff ever! It is a non-stick spray with flour in it. Sounds crazy, right? But for baking it is a MUST! It can be found at your local grocery store. It has 0 calories and it's so easy! Now you don't have to brush the inside of your baking pans with butter, or take two steps and spray them with non-stick and THEN coat them with flour. Baking made easy!

I hope you all have a GREAT Thanksgiving and give these a try!
      xoxo Cookin' Cowgirl.

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