Shortcut Recipes: Low Fat Cranberry Orange Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup coconut oil
2/3 cup orange juice
2 tsp grated orange zest (a little more it’s delicious)
2 cups fresh cranberries

Directions:

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients, and set aside.

Baking TIP: Whenever you are using baking powder make sure that you shake up the container before you spoon it into the mixture (sometimes it settles when it’s stored, so make sure that it’s all mixed up before you use it because otherwise you could end up with flat biscuits or muffins.

In another bowl combine wet ingredients (except cranberries).

Baking TIP: Whenever you are baking you should ALWAYS mix the wet and dry ingredients separately (unless recipe stipulates otherwise) and then combine them together. This helps to make sure that everything is evenly distributed and all chemicals react the way they are supposed to (after all baking is a Science). Mixing them separately also prevents your muffins and/or cookies from turning in a sludge fest.

Combine both wet and dry ingredients until combined.

Gently fold in cranberries (gently spoon mixture from the bottom to cover cranberries, avoid stirring to briskly, as this will squish the cranberries and turn your batter bright pink).

Line a muffin tray, and using an ice cream scoop lightly spoon in muffin mix into the paper cups. The reason I use an ice cream scoop (with the release handle) is because it makes sure all muffins contain the roughly the same amount of batter, but also because it’s a no fuss no mess method for getting the muffin goop into the cups! I love it. If you want to go the extra mile you could always spray the scoop with cooking spray, but I don’t bother and it works fine.