Cranberry Orange Muffins | a gluten-free, dairy-free and soy-free recipe

I love good recipe swaps.  I recently swapped my quinoa minestrone recipe for a cranberry orange loaf that I used as the basis for this cranberry orange gluten-free, dairy-free and soy-free muffin recipe.  These are so tasty that the hubs just ate half of mine after stealing 'just a nibble'.  I’ve made these muffins twice this week; the first time batch I split with my sister Kat, but this time I’m keeping them all to myself.

This recipe uses more sugar than I usually do, but I think the tartness of the fresh cranberries kind of needs it so I’m hesitant to cut it back.  You could probably substitute honey or ¾ cup of agave with good results if you wanted to keep the recipe clean.

You need to chop up an entire bag of cranberries for this recipe, it’s kind of a pain to do, but it’s worth it if you want little cranberry pockets that ooze flavour in your muffin.  I guarantee you will think you have too many cranberries, but I promise you don’t.  Stir them in, all of them, you won’t be sorry.  I’ve also added a completely optional sprinkling of sugar on the top of the muffin.  I just love that little crunch of the sugar with the tart of the cranberry.

This recipe uses my gluten-free flour mix but I'm sure any good gluten-free mix would work.  Also, don't skip the ginger ale, that little bit of carbonation really lightens up the muffin.  If you don't have any ginger ale, I'm sure any clear carbonated beverage would work, even just soda water.

It’s hard to believe I could love these muffins so much, I don’t even like oranges or orange juice.

Cranberry Orange Muffin Recipe

gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free

Ingredients:

• 2 cups gluten-free flour mix
• 1 cup sugar + more for sprinkling*
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp xantham gum
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• ¾ cup orange juice
• zest of one orange
• ¼ cup ginger ale
• 1 bag (~3 cups) fresh or frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F, prepare muffin pans.
2. In a large bowl whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside.
3. In a medium bowl whisk the oil, egg, orange juice and orange zest together.
4. Gently stir the ginger ale into the wet ingredients before pouring the wet ingredients into the dry.
5. Gently stir the batter, as soon as it starts to come together, fold in the cranberries until blended.
6. Nearly fill the muffin cups, then sprinkle lightly with sugar*.
7. Bake for 35 minutes, turning once during baking, until tops are evenly browned and lightly firm to the touch. 
8. Allow muffins to cool in pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a rack to finish cooling.

Yield: 15-18 Muffins
* optional