These cranberry and orange muffins made with yogurt are so moist and delectable, you won’t even care that they’re rather healthy, too! No butter, a whole cup of yogurt and very little sugar make them a perfect breakfast treat. or afternoon snack. Just read the reviews!
If you haven’t tried my perfect plum muffins, then maybe this recipe for cranberry and orange muffins will convince you to try the recipe. No matter which fruit I use, they always turn out–well, perfectly!
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I found some frozen cranberries in my freezer, and decided I’d make some cranberry and orange muffins. They are my favorite bakery item to order whenever I go to Homegirl Cafe in downtown Los Angeles, one of my favorite charities.
As you can see from the photos, using the perfect plum muffin recipe, but using cranberries and orange rind instead of plums was a good call. These cranberry and orange muffins tasted awesome, and this will not be the the last time I make them! (Updated 5/2018: I cannot count how many times I’ve made these!)
Baking options
I made six really huge muffins, lined with squares of parchment paper. and one mini-loaf pan. However, you can also make 12 regular cupcake sized muffins from this recipe. I’ve also baked the entire batter in a regular sized loaf tin.
Again, I highly recommend using a scale for best results.
Homemade (Perfect) Cranberry and Orange Muffins
makes 12 regular muffins (printable recipe below)
Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC)
Ingredients
- 2 cups (275g) good quality white flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/3 cup (100g) sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup (100ml) light olive oil or sunflower oil
- 1 cup (225ml) Greek yogurt or labne (if using regular yogurt, omit the buttermilk/milk)
- 2 Tbsp buttermilk (or milk with a squeeze of lemon)
- 300g (2 cups) fresh or frozen (let defrost a bit) cranberries (I’ve also used 1 cup dried cranberries)
- grated rind of one orange (preferably organic)
- Swedish pearl sugar or Demerara sugar (Sugar in the Raw) for topping
Sift first 3 ingredients into a large bowl, then stir in sugar. (<– DO NOT FORGET THE SUGAR)
Place the cranberries (toss with a tiny bit of flour, which will stop them from falling to the bottom) with the grated orange peel in a small bowl, and set aside. (You can use a fine grater for the peel, I just did larger peel this time.)
In a large measuring jug, combine the eggs, oil, yogurt and buttermilk and whisk to combine.
Stir the yogurt mixture into the dry ingredients, just until barely combined (do not mix until the flour is completely cleared).
Add the cranberries and orange peel, and continue to fold the mixture until just combined.
Do not over stir muffins or they will not be light in texture.
Gently place the mixture into the muffin cups or mini-loaf pans, or one large loaf tin, then sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until muffins and golden brown (if making one loaf, bake for about 50 to 55 minutes) and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the center.
Try to let the Cranberry and Orange Yogurt Muffins cool slightly before digging in with a hot cup of tea!
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a winter sunrise
Homemade Cranberry and Orange Yogurt Muffins
These beautiful muffins have less sugar, no butter and are made with yogurt so are quite healthy compared to other recipes, yet there's no sacrifice in the flavor.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (275g) good quality white flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/3 cup (100g) sugar
- 1/2 cup (100ml) light olive oil or sunflower oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup (225ml) greek yogurt or labne (if using regular yogurt, omit the buttermilk/milk)
- 2 Tbsp buttermilk
- 2 cups (300g) fresh or frozen cranberries (I've also used 1 cup of dried cranberries)
- grated rind of one orange (preferably organic)
- Swedish pearl sugar, or Demerara sugar (sugar in the raw) for topping
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F (175C)
- Sift first 3 ingredients into a large bowl, then stir in sugar.
- Place the cranberries (toss with a tiny bit of flour, which will stop them from falling to the bottom of the pan) with the grated orange peel in a small bowl, and set aside.
- In a large measuring jug, combine the eggs, oil, yogurt and buttermilk and whisk to combine. Stir the yogurt mixture into the dry ingredients, just until barely combined (do not mix until the flour is completely cleared).
- Add the cranberries and orange peel, and continue to fold the mixture until just combined. Do not over stir muffins or they will not be light in texture.
- Place the mixture into the muffin cups or mini-loaf pans, or one large loaf tin, then sprinkle with sugar.
- Bake for about 20 minutes or until muffins and golden brown (or 50 to 55 mins if making one loaf) and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the center.
- Try to let them cool slightly before digging in, with a hot cup of tea!
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving:Calories: 131Total Fat: 3gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 33mgSodium: 162mgCarbohydrates: 21gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 4g
Nutrition information is only an estimate.
Pin for later.
Christina’s Cucina is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
Hi, Christina,
First of all – I AM IN LOVE with the whole orange cake! I’m not much of a cook and when I tried it I literally said that this was the tastiest thing that I have ever cooked. I even made a tiny addition – I cut it in two and spread some mascarpone+egg filling between the two halves and on top. It produces the perfect holiday cake ;)
Sorry for the off topic but it was long due!
Now for the muffins – do you think it will be doable to sub the white flour with whole wheat? And the white sugar for brown? It’s only 100g so I can live with it, thou. Still, I have to check upon my diet for a while but the look amazing so I’m a little tempted to give them a try.
So happy you like the orange cake!
Re: the muffins, I have never used wheat flour and brown sugar, so all I can tell you is that you can try! Let me know if you do!
Ok, this is gonna be long one, but I have a little story to tell.
I fell in love with the blood orange cookies recipe but it’s extremely hard to find those in Bulgaria and I just decided to wait till some supermarket around stocks them.
Two weeks ago we had an event and we made the yummy orange cake. We bought a pack of bio oranges and I still had 3 oranges and decided to try the muffins. As I said in the previous comment I’m on a tiny diet so I used brown sugar and 1:1 all purpose and whole wheat flour so it wasn’t all whole wheat cuz I was scared to alter the whole thing. (I always follow the recipes!)
They came out amazing, but apparently my cranberries were a bit sour so the muffins needed a dash of honey.
Now the funny part – my boyfriend took the orange I zested and wanted to juice it. So he cut it and says “Oh, look, it’s a blood orange.”
I literally jumped off the couch and screamed:”Don’t touch it! Don’t even think about it! Don’t breathe around it! I need it!”
The poor thing was a bit shocked :D Can you believe it?! A blood orange mixed in pack of normal oranges?! And in the verry moment I’m whining that I can’t find one?! What are the odds… Anyway, I now have 6 tbsp juice in the fridge and tomorrow I’m gonna give them a go.
Wish me luck! (Sorry again for the long post)
OMG, that is HILARIOUS!!! I love it! He must have jumped out of his socks! haha! That was so lucky though and good thing he said soemthing! Can you imagine if he told you later?! Enjoy the cookies!! No apology needed, I love it!
I’d like to make these with bran and chopped walnuts added, and orange left out. Would that work and if so what amounts of bran and walnuts would you suggest, and would there be any other changes needed? Alternatively, could I use wholemeal flour or wholegrain flour? I don’t want to spoil what sounds like a lovely muffin! Thank you
Robyn
Hi Robyn, these muffins are pretty versatile, but I have never made them with the substitutions you suggest, so my answer is honestly, I have no idea. You are wanting to do something I constantly advise against: changing the entire recipe before even making it once. It’s one thing to omit the orange (which is just flavoring, if perhaps you don’t like orange), and I have this muffin recipe on my site with rhubarb, plums, and so many other fruits, but omitting the fruit entirely and then changing the flour? It’s not the same recipe anymore. What I suggest is making it as written FIRST, then once you know the recipe a bit, THEN make some small changes, one at a time.
You have to understand that the reason this is a bad idea is that the changes will often cause the recipe to fail. Often, people who do this then leave me a 1 star, scathing review that the recipe “didn’t work”. It’s simply not my recipe at that point. Thanks for understanding and good luck, it is truly a lovely muffin (the best I’ve ever had, and it’s not my recipe, so I’m not bragging) :)
Thanks for this recipe – it was time to update the one I had that used orange juice for the orange flavour. This fit the bill!
I made them today and my only change was to add about half a cup of white chocolate chips. I skipped the sugar topping, they didn’t need it with the white chocolate providing extra sweetness. Yum!
Awesome, Robyn! Thank you and sounds good with the white chocolate! :)
Hi, can I substitute Greek yogurt with sour cream? I have run out of yogurt…
YES! :)
Thank you♥️
[…] I’d tried the plum muffins, it was onto blueberry, and orange cranberry muffins, any fruit I tried was fabulous! Most recently, I posted the recipe for rhubarb muffins, and they […]
[…] are super versatile! I’ve made plum, blueberry, peach, rhubarb, cranberry-orange, and so many more. The printable recipe below will highlight a mixed fruit […]
Made these for the first time today and they are delicious! I love that they aren’t too sweet, and I altered the recipe because I didn’t have Cranberries on hand, so used Blueberries instead and they are still lovely and light and fluffy.
Oh, I’m delighted that you tried these, Tara! Aren’t they just amazing? And yes, blueberries are excellent in them, too. I just made the loaf version of cranberry orange today, too!
I am making these again tomorrow! They are so delicious!
I’m delighted when anyone makes these because I know how it feels the first time! haha! Aren’t they AMAZING?! Thanks for the note, Linda! I’m sure you’ll be making them a lot in future! :) CC
Hello,
Just wondering about the yogurt. It says 1 cup (200ml). But one cup is 250ml. I don’t want to put too much in error. Please let me know if it’s 200ml or 250ml (one cup)
Thanks!
Hi Annie, sorry for the delay in responding (I’ve been traveling for 3 weeks). One cup (8 oz) is actually 236.5 ml, so 36 g more or less of yogurt won’t make a difference in this recipe. It would still be fine if you put 250ml. Hope they turned out well for you! :) Let me know! CC
They turned out delicious thank you!
Wonderful! Thanks for letting me know, Annie!
[…] yogurt semolina cake, from Tin and Thyme High fibre raspberry yogurt cake, from Recipes Made Easy Cranberry and orange yogurt muffins, from Christina’s […]
How well do these freeze? I need to bake ahead for the holidays.
I freeze them all the time. I would warm them a little before serving as they are so much lovelier that way. :) Enjoy, Rita.
They all look simply delicious! Can’t wait to try the Plum & the Cranberry Muffins!
You’re the bomb!
Great, Denise! I think you’ll be very pleased! Let me know, thanks!
I made these today, I doubled the recipe and made 12 giant muffins to take to work for my staff. I left them in the oven a little too long, but it turned out to be a good thing, because I had a really nice crunchy outside and a super light and airy inside. The taste is amazing, I will definitely make them again. Thanks for the recipe Christina!
Oooh, maybe I’ll have to give that a try, too! Thanks, Linda! I’m sure the staff loved them! Thanks for letting me know! :)
I adore your muffins… wait that just sounded wrong. LOL.
Let me start over. You make the BEST muffins e.v.e.r.
Not only do they taste great, but they are also drop-dead gorgeous.
Haha! I got it! I know you love them, thank you so much! :)
What do you have your muffin tins lined with?
Oops! I should have specified, Pam! Sorry! I cut squares of baking parchment and put them inside the tin. Works great.
So, the kids’ friends all turned up out of the blue, had precisely nothing to feed them so whipped up a batch of these! Ready in no time, and they vanished in seconds. Shared the recipe with one boy who declared them ‘exquisite!”!!!!!😄
OMG, how cute is that? Exquisite? I love it! Thank you for sharing this lovely comment with me, Lisa! I so appreciate it! :)
Just made these with blueberries absolutely delicious with a cup of Yorkshire tea!
Good for you, Kate! Don’t know if you’re on Instagram, but I made a loaf of this recipe and put it on my story yesterday using teeny tiny wild blueberries. Don’t try it, didn’t work. Needs normal blueberries! :) Enjoy and thank you for the comment/review! :) CC
[…] Try making these with blueberries or any other favorite fruit too! Here is my Cranberry Orange version. […]
Had baked these a couple of times with blueberries and cranberries. They are moist and light
My dad loved them.
This is one of my most popular recipes, for the exact reason that you stated. They are so moist and light! Thanks, Mi Mi!
This is a favorite flavor profile for me, especially in the winter. I’ve been using the recipe from a childrens’ literature book called, A Cranberry Thanksgiving. I’m pinning this to use up my stash of cranberries. How large did you cut the wax paper muffin liners? I like the looks of it. T Y
I LOVED cranberry Christmas as a kid. Years later when my son was born I found cranberry thanksgiving. Great books!!
I’ve never heard of these books! Must research!
Thanks, Vicky! I used the big muffin tins, so probably about 4 x 4 or 5 x 5. I just eyeballed it. Tip: if there’s too much paper sticking up above all the muffins when you’re done, cut the paper down a bit as it will impair the baking (can you guess how I know?) :)
I made these today and holy cow are they easy and good!! I actually scraped some of the juice and pulp into the batter just cuz I love orange. I made little mini muffins and it made nearly 3 dozen! The orange/cranberry combo is so good together. I bet this could easily adapted to other citrus and fruit flavors like lemon blueberry, lime strawberry, grapefruit and..??? What goes good with grapefruit??
Not sure Esther will see this but i used to use a powdered buttermilk mix when a recipe called for it in the bread machine. Might work in this too. Certainly better than throwing away good buttermilk. The fat free buttermilk freezes ok but gets grainy.
Oh this is one of my favorite recipes, Beverly! And YES, you can make any sort of flavor you like! Try it as the original recipe intended, with plums! You won’t believe how yummy they are. Not sure what you could do with grapefruit, but you’ll enjoy, no matter what you put in them, I’m sure. :) Thanks for reporting back!!
When you us dried cranberries did you rehydrate them? If so, in what? Seems to me, OJ would be a good choice for this.
Hi Candace, I’ve actually used the dried cranberries both ways (as is, and I’ve rehydrated them also). YES! Hot orange juice is a great option, just be sure to drain them well. Enjoy!
Love the look of these Christina, I always over buy cranberries because they have such a short season here. But I found some in the freezer from last year :o so I think I should use them up! I may make the muffins then freeze them, as we have far too much to eat in the house at the moment.
Same here, that’s why I had the bag of cranberries in the freezer! I will warn you though, they really taste best fresh, so maybe you should wait to make them when you can eat them straight away. Mine also took twice as long to bake today because I didn’t defrost the cranberries and they were huge! Still came out fantastic though!
I just made these this morning and they are wonderful! I made a few adjustments: I used 1/4 cup coconut sugar and 2 T. honey for sweetener, 1/4 cup coconut oil, omitted the buttermilk and used turbinado sugar on top because that’s what I had on hand. Yum! Will make these again. Thanks for the recipe!
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know, Casey! :) Happy New Year!
This recipe looks great and I will definitely try it this weekend. Just wondering whether I can reduce the amount of sugar by half which is around 50g when making the muffin.
Hi Joschan, actually, these muffins are really not very sweet at all, so I truly wouldn’t recommend it. Why don’t you make it as is once, then decide according to how they taste?
Well, I made them yesterday and they are all gone today ? they were crazy delicious. Will make some more this coming week. I was wondering what else we can use instead of buttermilk? Only because I don’t usually have that on hand. Try them girls!
Wonderful! So happy you liked them, Esther! You can always put a big squeeze of lemon juice into regular milk as a substitute for buttermilk, or you can buy powdered buttermilk. However, I would encourage you to buy a quart of buttermilk once, and see the difference it will make in the outcome. Let me know! :)
Christina, I did buy a quart of buttermilk and used it. I don’t use buttermilk ever threw away the rest. I was thinking since we only need 2 tbsp of it we could substitute with something else? Man, it was also expensive, hate to waste food! You know what I mean. But I will make them again, regardless. Thank You for the recipe.
Oh my mistake, Esther! I was thinking this was a recipe which had more buttermilk in it, getting it mixed up with my pancakes, I think! I wish I could have shown you this before you threw it away-it’s such a great ingredient for so many recipes: http://communitytable.parade.com/421156/christinaconte/a-dozen-delicious-ways-to-use-buttermilk/
That’s terrible that it’s so expensive! It’s very inexpensive here in LA. Yes, I’d just add a little lemon juice to regular milk in future. Enjoy!
Oh my these look amazing! I would like to make today. Question: is the Greek yogurt plain or vanilla? Thanks
You’ll LOVE them Esther! I use plain Greek yogurt as it has no sugar, however, if you only have vanilla on hand I would try it and see how you like the outcome. They’ll still have the fabulous texture but will be a little sweeter. Enjoy!
thank you so much!
You’re very welcome, Esther! :)
Hi Christina, does it need orange juice for this? Saw a glass of it in ur pic but not in the recipe. I m planning to make this. Let me know pls. Thx
Good eye, Rita! No, no orange juice in the recipe. I think I probably juiced the orange after grating the rind and was drinking it while I was making these! You’ll love these muffins, they’re sooo light and wonderful! Enjoy!
Thank you for the yummy and most importantly.. EASY recipe :))
Made with fresh cranberries and no sugar pearls (mainly was too lazy to go find’em!!)
But still were SUPER yummy!! My 1 year old is DEVOURING’em!
Yay! Everyone loves these muffins, Harshita! But I think your 1 year old is the youngest fan yet! :) Thanks for letting me know! CC
Great Recipe! Tried it out yesterday with my left over frozen cranberries from Christmas. I love that they are not too sweet and have the added protein from the greek yogurt. Will definitely make again soon!
Thank you for letting me know, Christina! I totally agree! :) CC
“Christina”….. this girl can cook! Beautiful:)
Awww…thank you, Sally! :)
I love the sound of these but the plum version sounds even more amazing. Can’t wait for overnight guests so that I have a good excuse to try them! – Davud
I don’t know why the plum muffins taste so incredible, but they do! You won’t be disappointed, no matter what fruit you use, David! Thanks for stopping by! :)
Beautiful <3
Thank you, Heidy!
Dear Christina,
These Cranberry and Orange muffins look so yummy. They really are a perfect treat for breakfast or anytime. I love the sugar pearls for the topping. Lovely as a picture and I am sure they taste delightful! Thanks for sharing..
Dottie :)
Thank you for your sweet compliments, Dottie! :) CC
Oh these are perfect. I love cranberry and orange. I have some frozen cranberries. Making these will report back. They are just beautiful.
Thanks so much! You’ll love them, I’m sure! :)
These muffins look delicious! Bitter sweet.. :)
Yes, not too sweet at all, Medeja…but I love the crunch of the sugar pearls and the extra bit of sweetness they add! CC
Oh Christina that top photo is luscious…I am a sucker for muffins!
Thanks, Sue…you are so kind! :)
Oh Christina! these do look perfect – wonderful flavors:)
Mary x
Thank you, Mary!! CC