Cranberry-Coconut Muffins

I adore making muffins. They are quick to make, fairly simple, and a great on-the-go snack. I’m sure many moms are like me, I’m often running out the door on my way to somewhere, and sometimes I may be running late or I know I’ll be out a while so I’ll grab a snack or two for the road. Muffins are perfect for that.

I had some walnuts still in my pantry from the  banana nut bread I had made last month. I also keep shredded coconut for coconut chicken, and I had some dried cranberries I had made some cookies with. I was in the mood to bake some muffins, and I thought that sounded like a really good mix. Cranberries always remind me of Fall, but coconut brings me back to summertime, so I thought it was a perfect mix for that transitional phase when nights are colder than summer, but days are much warmer than Fall.
These were a hit, my husband even had a few and he’s not a “muffin man”. Ha!


Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• orange juice
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 teaspoon grated orange peel
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 cup dried sweetened cranberries
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon sugar

Place one cup of dried cranberries in a bowl, and soak in orange juice while building your muffins.

In one bowl, combine your flour, sugars, salt, baking powder and spices. Mix well.

In a separate bowl, combine your egg, coconut milk, applesauce, vanilla extract, and grated orange peel. Mix together until blended well.

Now pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients, and mix just enough to where it starts to blend. If you overmix you end up with hard muffins, you want them light with a bread-like texture.

Drain your cranberries and add them to the mix, as well as the nuts and coconut.

Combine until just evenly mixed, be careful not to overmix!

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Prepare your muffin tin by greasing the insides and top. I love Baker’s Joy for all my baking needs. It’s perfect and the texture of cakes, breads, muffins etc always comes out amazing and NEVER sticks.  This is what I use for my 7-Up cake as well, and it comes out just right every time!

Fill up your muffin pan with the mix, it makes exactly 12 cupcake sized muffins.

Sprinkle the tops with a little bit of cinnamon sugar, and pop in the oven and bake for about  20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool, and serve!

Enjoy!!