Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffins

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Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffin 4
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These muffins are absolutely amazing! The boldness of the flavors combined in a moist muffin takes me to a place where my tongue dances and celebrates with every bite.  Let me start off by giving a little bit of history: this all started at Panera bread. Panera makes a jumbo Orange Cranberry muffin that used to only be seasonal.  Now they have it all year and my son and I especially just love it. There is something about how the cranberries would explode in your mouth with the candied orange peel that we loved.  I have no idea if their base was a sourdough starter but I set out to recreate their muffin armed with my sourdough starter discard and my own twist.

For my muffins, I wanted to add a fresh Apple in as well.  I went with a granny smith apple because it is tart, sweet and very firm.  In this recipe, soft apples like pink lady would fall apart or possibly even disappear.  It soft apples are your favorite I would suggest slicing your appl and using bigger pieces.

Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffin 1

Lets Talk Sourdough Discard

This is a sourdough discard recipe...YAY!  I hate wasting sourdough starter so I save up all of my discard.  What is sourdough discard?  Sourdough discard is ANY sourdough starter that has not been fed for at least 12 hours (some people say 24 hours).  I produce just about a cup of sourdough discard a week from my regular baking cycle and this recipe uses all of it up.  Perfection! 

How to Grate an  Orange

This process is not very different than zesting an orange we are just going to use a side of our box grater that is usually reserved for cheese.  The key is to pay attention that you do not press too hard and grate into the white of the orange’s rind.  I prefer to use large navel oranges for this because they are easier to handle for my hands and their rind is much thicker than juice oranges.

Sourdough Starter and Grated Orange

How to Make Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffins

  • In our first step, we will make the streusel that we will adorn our muffins with.  You can complete this step with a fork or you can use a pastry blender, which will save your hands a lot of work. The streusel is a crumbly blend on butter, sugar, cinnamon, and flour.  It is very important that your butter is cold and has not been out of the refrigerator for long.  Soft butter will cream and not scrumble the way we desire.  Once you have blended all the ingredients cover the streusel and place in the fridge or the freeze.
  • Next, we want to combine all of our dry ingredients into a large bowl.  This is the bowl that will ultimately house all our muffin mix.
  • Crack the egg in a separate bowl and whisk it well.  Then add the butter, vanilla extract, and the grated orange peel to the egg and gently whisk.  It is important that the melted butter is not hot.  Hot butter will cook the egg.  

    Once all of these ingredients have been whisked together fold in the sourdough starter.  We are not trying to beat the starter into submission but gently bind all the wet ingredients.

  • Pour all of the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and combine with a spatula.  It will start to form into a shaggy dough ball after 2-3 minutes of mixing.  The dough will be stiff and feel hard/dry.  Resist the urge to add more liquid.  The first time I made this recipe my wife, the baker, yelled and fussed at me that I was going to feed her children dry and hard biscuits.  She was wrong...trust me, trust the process.

  • Its time to add the apple and thawed cranberries to the dough.   Some of the cranberries will become crushed and many will bleed their lovely red color all over the dough as you mix them together.  This is to be expected and is desired.  The thawed cranberries also add moisture to your dough in the cooking process.

  • Using a mini ice cream scooper fill the cavities of a muffin tin lined with cupcake liners.  These muffins do not rise a ton (about 10-15%) so feel free to fill up the cups.  

    Then get the streusel from the fridge and generously add streusel to the top of each muffin

  • Bake for 16-20 minutes at 400 degrees.  The muffins are fully cooked when you can stick a toothpick into them and no batter is left on the toothpick when you remove it.

  • Remove from the muffin tin onto a cooling rack and let rest for 10 minutes (if you can wait that long).

Notes and variations

  1. You can use almost any combination of nuts and fruit in this recipe.  It is important to remember though that as you experiment the cranberries add moisture during baking so if you remove them you may need to account for that.
  2. Nutmeg or other spices can be added to the streusel
  3. Although this is a sourdough discard starter recipe, you can eliminate the sourdough starter and follow this recipe and still make awesome muffins. 
  4. Frozen cranberries that have been thawing for about an hour on the counter work best for this recipe
  5. I have never used all of the streusel on my muffins.  Subconsciously I do this so I can put some in the fridge and see it in a few days and start to crave the muffins again.
For the Streusel
 ½ cup packed light brown sugar
 ⅓ cup all purpose flour
 ½ tsp cinnamon
 ¼ cup cold butter, cubed
For the Muffins
 ½ cup sugar
 1 tsp baking powder
 ½ tsp baking soda
 ½ tsp salt
 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
 1 egg
 ½ cup butter, melted and cooled
 ¼ cup grated orange peel
 1 tbsp vanilla extract
 1 cup sourdough starter, at room temperature
 1 ½ cups cranberriesthawed if frozen
 ½ cup granny smith apple, chopped

Cooking Directions

1

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Make the streusel
2

In a small bowl mix together:
1. brown sugar,
2. 1/3 cup flour, and
3. cold butter until crumbly.

Cover and place in the refrigerator or freezer.

Streusel

Combine wet ingredients
3

In another bowl whisk together:
1. egg
2. vanilla extract
3. melted butter, and
4. grated orange peel.

Grated Orange

Add Sourdough Discard
4

Gently fold in your sourdough starter until blended.

Combine dry ingredients
5

In a large bowl whisk together:
1. sugar,
2. baking powder,
3. baking soda,
4. salt, and
5. 1 1/2 cups flour.

Make Muffin Mix
6

Add the bowl of wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until everything is just combined.

Muffin Mix without fruit

7

Add the cranberries and apples and fold until blended.

Muffin Mix with Fruit

8

Evenly divide the batter among the cavities of a paper lined muffin tin. Sprinkle the tops with the streusel.

Sourdough Cranberry Orange mini muffins ready to bake

Bake the muffins
9

Bake the muffins for 16 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Let them cool completely in a wire rack.

Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffin 1

Please follow me on Instagram
When you make this recipe, I would love to know! Tag @cookingwithatiba and #cookingwithatiba.

Watch How To Make It

 

Yields12 Servings
Prep Time25 minsCook Time18 minsTotal Time43 mins

Recipe Ingredients

For the Streusel
 ½ cup packed light brown sugar
 ⅓ cup all purpose flour
 ½ tsp cinnamon
 ¼ cup cold butter, cubed
For the Muffins
 ½ cup sugar
 1 tsp baking powder
 ½ tsp baking soda
 ½ tsp salt
 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
 1 egg
 ½ cup butter, melted and cooled
 ¼ cup grated orange peel
 1 tbsp vanilla extract
 1 cup sourdough starter, at room temperature
 1 ½ cups cranberriesthawed if frozen
 ½ cup granny smith apple, chopped

Cooking Directions

1

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Make the streusel
2

In a small bowl mix together:
1. brown sugar,
2. 1/3 cup flour, and
3. cold butter until crumbly.

Cover and place in the refrigerator or freezer.

Streusel

Combine wet ingredients
3

In another bowl whisk together:
1. egg
2. vanilla extract
3. melted butter, and
4. grated orange peel.

Grated Orange

Add Sourdough Discard
4

Gently fold in your sourdough starter until blended.

Combine dry ingredients
5

In a large bowl whisk together:
1. sugar,
2. baking powder,
3. baking soda,
4. salt, and
5. 1 1/2 cups flour.

Make Muffin Mix
6

Add the bowl of wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until everything is just combined.

Muffin Mix without fruit

7

Add the cranberries and apples and fold until blended.

Muffin Mix with Fruit

8

Evenly divide the batter among the cavities of a paper lined muffin tin. Sprinkle the tops with the streusel.

Sourdough Cranberry Orange mini muffins ready to bake

Bake the muffins
9

Bake the muffins for 16 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Let them cool completely in a wire rack.

Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffin 1

Please follow me on Instagram
When you make this recipe, I would love to know! Tag @cookingwithatiba and #cookingwithatiba.

Media Gallery

 

Tools and Gadgets

 

Ingredients

For the Streusel
 ½ cup packed light brown sugar
 ⅓ cup all purpose flour
 ½ tsp cinnamon
 ¼ cup cold butter, cubed
For the Muffins
 ½ cup sugar
 1 tsp baking powder
 ½ tsp baking soda
 ½ tsp salt
 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
 1 egg
 ½ cup butter, melted and cooled
 ¼ cup grated orange peel
 1 tbsp vanilla extract
 1 cup sourdough starter, at room temperature
 1 ½ cups cranberriesthawed if frozen
 ½ cup granny smith apple, chopped

Directions

1

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Make the streusel
2

In a small bowl mix together:
1. brown sugar,
2. 1/3 cup flour, and
3. cold butter until crumbly.

Cover and place in the refrigerator or freezer.

Streusel

Combine wet ingredients
3

In another bowl whisk together:
1. egg
2. vanilla extract
3. melted butter, and
4. grated orange peel.

Grated Orange

Add Sourdough Discard
4

Gently fold in your sourdough starter until blended.

Combine dry ingredients
5

In a large bowl whisk together:
1. sugar,
2. baking powder,
3. baking soda,
4. salt, and
5. 1 1/2 cups flour.

Make Muffin Mix
6

Add the bowl of wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until everything is just combined.

Muffin Mix without fruit

7

Add the cranberries and apples and fold until blended.

Muffin Mix with Fruit

8

Evenly divide the batter among the cavities of a paper lined muffin tin. Sprinkle the tops with the streusel.

Sourdough Cranberry Orange mini muffins ready to bake

Bake the muffins
9

Bake the muffins for 16 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Let them cool completely in a wire rack.

Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffin 1

Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffins
IngredientsDirections

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Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 1

Servings 12

Amount Per Serving
Calories 275
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 12.1g19%
Saturated Fat 7.4g37%
Cholesterol 44mg15%
Sodium 237mg10%
Total Carbohydrate 38.4g13%
Protein 3.2g7%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily value may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

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