I am in love with these muffins. A couple years ago it wouldn’t have taken very much for me to say that, but I’m a little pickier now. Most muffins are just not worth it to me anymore. Why waste the calories on something not that great, right? Well, let me tell you, these are so worth it. They even have a secret ingredient in the middle.
That’s right, these are stuffed with cream cheese. Awesome, right?
And did I mention these are made with a whole orange? Again, awesome! I’m totally in love with these muffins. Which I’m sure you can tell. A whole orange, fresh cranberries and then stuffed with cream cheese – how can you not love these? And of course they’re whole wheat and fairly low in sugar.
They aren’t the most attractive muffins…. But aren’t those usually the best? 😉
Unfortunately, something that is not the best… Winter light. I am seriously thankful I have a tripod because if you might not see me for a few months until the sun starts coming back. To be honest, it’s not something I ever thought about before I took pictures of my food. Now it pretty much rules my life.
Ooooh, and I probably shouldn’t even mention it, but I can’t help myself… I’ve been busy in the kitchen working on… Cookies! All kinds of cookies to share with you next week! And hopefully I’ll be able to share some tips to help you substitute whole wheat flour in your favorite baked goodies. I’m already so excited! What are your favorite cookies? And what cookies are you baking up this month?
For now, I hope you love these muffins as much as I do! <3
Whole Orange Fresh Cranberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 large navel orange seeds removed
- 3/4 C hot water
- 1/4 C oil melted if coconut oil
- 3/4 C brown sugar sucanat or palm sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 C white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 3/4 C fresh cranberries
- 4 oz cream cheese cut into 12 pieces
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and prepare a muffin tin with paper liners.
- Quarter the whole orange(peel and all), removing any seeds. Blend together with the hot water until as smooth as possible and creamy looking. Stir in the oil, egg and sugar.
- In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir to combine, then stir in the cranberries.
- Add the orange mixture to the dry ingredients and stir together just until combined.
- Scoop batter into each muffin cup leaving just enough for one large spoonful of batter in each. Place the cream cheese on top of the batter, then cover with one spoonful of the remaining batter. Place in the oven and bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Place muffins on a cooling rack to cool slightly before serving.
Notes
Recipe slightly adapted from the 250 best muffin recipes by Esther Brody
Comments & Reviews
BONNIE says
Hi Heidi,
These sound great. I have one question, which may be silly … when you say, “whole orange,” are you including the peel, too, or do you remove it before blending the orange and water. Thanks for your upcoming answer. 🙂
Bonnie
Heidi @ Food Doodles says
Not silly at all. It is kind of strange but yes I mean the whole orange 🙂 Like the recipe says you may want to remove the seeds if there are any, but other than that you use the peel and all!
Charlotte Moore says
I love orange and cranberry. Do you put the orange and hot water in a blender? I can’t imagine how it would blend if not.
I just made your oatmeal raisin cookies today. I had to use whole wheat flour because I had just ground some because I was going to use my regular whole wheat recipe. I decided to look on your blog to see if you had one. For some reason since my grinder was worked on it is hard for me to grind spelt and kamut unless I do it a little on a higher setting. I didn’t use to have this problem.
They were so very good. I used dried cranberries, orange zest, and walnuts in such. Then I rolled some in unsweetened coconut. YUMMY!!!! I also made some chocolate chip. My hubby loves chocolate. Very pleased. I also looked on another recipe and saw it had a little more sugar/sucanat so I added 1/4 cup more honey granules to the sucanat. I will for sure make these again and again.
When I clicked on the recipe I had a hard time looking at it. It was real wide on the screen and I had to keep moving it around to see it all. I finally wrote it down so I could have it all together.
Laurel says
Yummy! I just made a double recipe. It took about 21 min here in el paso about 4k elevation. They have an intense orange flavor and used up some of the cranberries in my freezer. I will make these again! Thank you!!
Erin @ Texanerin Baking says
You did an awesome job of posting holiday goodies in December! Really! I just got overwhelmed and gave up. Oh well. There are worse things to happen, I suppose. 🙂
I love the ingredients in these! And a whole orange. I find it so fascinating! Cranberries and oranges are a great combo. Bookmarked!
Kiersten @ Oh My Veggies says
I really don’t know how people take photos without a tripod. Even when it’s sunny and bright, I need one. I guess my hands are especially shaky? I can’t wait to see your cookie recipes, but these muffins will tide me over–love the cream cheese in the middle! 😀
Heather says
So cool a whole orange!
I feel you on the whole winter light – the sun starts to fade around 1:30pm my best light has been bewteen 9:30am – 1pm – YIKES! That means only weekend photos for me and occasional weekday off 🙂
Carole says
Hi there. Food on Friday: Muffins and Cupcakes is open for entries. This looks like a neat one! I do hope you link it in. This is the link . Please check out some of the great links there are already. Cheers
chinmayie @ love food eat says
Never seen a reicpe which callsfor blending a whole orange! That’s quite uniue…
Charlee says
Do you peel the orange?
You say whole orange.
Heidi @ Food Doodles says
No you don’t peel the orange, just chop it up and blend 🙂
Kathryn says
These muffins sound incredible especially with that little surprise hidden in the middle!
Kit says
Oops when do you add the egg? I assume in to the wet ingredients.
Heidi @ Food Doodles says
Yes, you’re right. Sorry I forgot to add that in. I’ll go add it in now 🙂
Julia says
These look so tasty! I love that you used oranges and cranberries in the recipe. Definitely trying this out –maybe Christmas morning!