Cranberry Muffins....An Update

So, I made the muffins. They turned out good. The first batch I put a spoonfull of leftover cranberry sauce on top, then baked. The second batch I mixed the cranberry sauce in. I prefer the second method. It was easier and resulted in a less messy final product.


So, here's the recipe I used. I will put the changes I made in purple, of course. LOL


Basic Muffins
http://dinnercoop.cs.cmu.edu/dinnercoop/Recipes/jody/Muffins.html

2 cups flour
4 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup warm milk- I didn't warm the milk
1/4 lb. butter, melted and cooled slightly

Preheat oven to 400oF. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together. Mix the eggs, milk, and butter; add to dry ingredients, stirring only until the flour is moistened. Spoon into well-greased muffin tins. Bake ~20 minutes and serve immediately.


Variations: (Bacon, Cheese, Cranberry, Nut, Date, Upside-Down) Bacon: add 1/2 cup crisp dried bacon to dry ingredientsCheese: eliminate sugar and add 2/3 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese to sifted dry ingredients. Sprinkle with paprika before baking.Cranberry: mix 3/4 cup chopped cranberries and 1/4 cup sugar. Add to the dry ingredients.Nut: add 3/4 cup chopped nuts to the sifted dry ingredients.Date: add 1/2 cup sliced pitted dates to the sifted dry ingredients.Upside-down: in the bottom of each muffin cup place 1/2 teaspoon butter and 1 teaspoon brown sugar. Add a few nuts or raisins or 1 stewed dried fig or apricot. Cover with batter and bake as directed.

I put one heaping teaspoon full (the regular eating kind) on the top of the filled muffin cups for the first batch. For the second batch, I just mixed the remaining cranberry sauce (about a cup or so) right into the batter. No other changes.


Now we have quite a few muffins for snacks or breakfast. All in all it turned out great. Instead of putting the cranberry sauce on the top, you could fill the muffin tins half way, put the cranberry sauce, then fill the muffin tin the rest of the way. That would be less mess, I think, but it was a bit more time consuming than I was looking for at the time. I might get pictures up here, but then again, I might not so I'm not making any promises. :)