Cranberry muffins with a moist tender crumb, crunchy sweet almond topping, and a burst of tartness every time you bite into a cranberry. These are simple to prepare and made in one bowl with no mixer required. How easy is that?

A cranberry muffin on a cooling rack with more in background.

Cranberries look innocent enough with that beautiful red-burgundy color, but inside they’re tart enough to make you pucker. So if you eat one, make sure you’re next to someone you don’t mind making that face to. But if you add a little sugar, they turn out to be quite delicious. You get a sweet and tart thing going on that tastes pretty good.

Although cranberries fall on the spectrum of healthy foods, I’d be lying if I said these muffins are healthy. In fact, it really pisses me off when a writer has a “healthy” or “good for you” recipe on their website, only to find that there is only one healthy ingredient followed by a list of bad stuff. Fake news! You just can’t believe anything anymore. Well, here on the genetic chef, I tell it like it is.

Let’s just say these muffins are better for you because you made them. There’s no fake stuff. You have cream, oil, milk, eggs, flavoring, and some dry ingredients to hold it all together. There’s nothing artificial, so in that way they are “good for you”.

This is basically my blueberry muffin recipe but substituted with cranberries. Pretty sneaky huh? I figure why mess with perfection.

This uses the muffin method which means that dry ingredients are all whisked together in one bowl, and wet ingredients mixed in. Measure all your wet ingredients in a measuring cup and pour it in. You don’t need a mixer my friends, just a fork, spoon, or spatula and some arm strength.

Once the batter is mixed, you just:

scoop it in

the muffin tin

some sugar on the top

to give a little pop

put it in the oven

with a little bit of lovin’

then bake, cool, eat,

these are tart and sweet

Baked cranberry muffins in a muffin pan.

Try some of my other breakfast treats:

Three cranberry muffins on a board with scattered cranberries.

Life is too short for mediocre food.

Have you seen these?

Cranberry Muffins

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Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 25

Total Time: 35

Servings: Muffins

Author: Natalie Gregory

Ingredients

2 ½ cups flour
¼ cup cornstarch
1 ¼ cups sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon fine salt
1 cup heavy cream
½ cup neutral oil
¼ cup milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract or 1 tablespoon amaretto
1 ½ cups cranberries - fresh or frozen

¼ cup sliced almonds*
2 tablespoons sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°.
Use oil or baking spray to grease a 12 cup muffin pan. Alternatively, use paper liners. If you want them to peel off easily, you can spray the liners.
In a large bowl, whisk the flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, and salt combining well.
In a 2 cup measure, add cream, oil, milk, eggs, and extract. Whisk with a fork and combine well.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and use a spatula or fork to combine. The batter will be thick. Mix just until combined. Over mixing will result in tough muffins with tunneling throughout.
Fold in the cranberries with a spatula.
Scoop the batter into muffin tin all the way to the top. There is exactly enough batter to fill a ½ cup 12 serving muffin tin.
Sprinkle tops with some sliced almonds then with the sugar to create a crunchy topping.
Place in oven and bake 25 - 30 minutes. Check after 22 as oven temperatures run differently.
Let cool for 5 - 10 minutes, then remove from pan and continue to cool on the wire rack.