Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

As mentioned in my previous post, I have a fridge full of cranberries right now. Being from Cape Cod,  I have a special love for the cranberry. When I was little, my parents sometimes took my sister and I to "Cranberry World." It was basically just a museum with dioramas of cranberry bogs and free juice samples. I know it sounds kind of lame, but it was clearly successful in its attempt to turn small children into ravenous consumers of the cranberry (it was owned by Ocean Spray, after all).

Anyways, I felt like making some muffins with my excess cranberries. I'd seen recipes for pumpkin cranberry muffins, but none were quite what I wanted, so I adapted this one to suit the muffin-vision dancing in my head. I swapped vanilla yogurt for half of the oil, and used my lovely fresh cranberries instead of the dried ones. I didn't have any of the ground ginger that it called for, so I left it out. I didn't feel like putting the pecans in either, but I might use them next time. And finally, for a sweet crunch, I sprinkled the tops of the muffins with some turbinado sugar before baking. These came out exactly like I wanted them to: soft and moist with tons of tangy cranberries.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins
Adapted from Bettycrocker.com

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
2 eggs
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh cranberries
turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

Directions:
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray muffin cups with cooking spray or line with paper baking cups.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Stir in pumpkin, oil, yogurt, and eggs until just moistened. Fold in cranberries. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, then sprinkle each with some turbinado sugar.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean. Remove muffins from pan to cooling rack. Serve warm.

Makes 12 muffins.

Download a printable recipe.