This recipe for Orange Cranberry Swirl Muffins is a great way to use leftover cranberry sauce. I should know. I always have tons left after every Thanksgiving meal, and it’s not because I make bad cranberry sauce. For some reason people just aren’t into it. So I started looking for ways to use the inevitable leftover cranberry sauce, and that’s how these muffins came about.
Orange Cranberry Swirl Muffins
The point here is to use up cranberry sauce, but you can also just make these as regular orange muffins. They are large and fluffy. Since I like muffins with big rims, I pile the muffin batter into the cups and get about 6 muffins. If you want smaller, shorter muffins, fill just to the top and you should get 9.
Other Leftover Cranberry and Sauce Ideas
Orange Cranberry Swirl Muffins are just one idea for using leftover cranberry sauce. Another really good dessert using sauce is the Cranberry Chocolate Fudge Cake. The recipe calls for canned cranberry sauce, but you can substitute leftover homemade cranberry sauce. The Cranberry Nut Bars and the Sliced Cranberry Cookies with Pecans call for leftover fresh cranberries rather than sauce.
Recipe
Orange Cranberry Swirl Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups flour 6.8 oz
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 scant cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest loosely packed
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup orange juice
- 1/4 cup sour cream room temperature
- 1/2 cup or so — doesn’t have to be precise leftover cranberry sauce
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray 6 (or 9) muffin cups with flour-added cooking spray.
- Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; Set aside. In a large or medium size mixing bowl, mix the sugar and orange zest together with your fingers or a spoon until the sugar turns orange. Add the softened butter and beat with a hand held mixer until mixed, then add egg and vanilla and beat until fluffy.
- With a mixing spoon or a heavy duty scraper (I do all my mixing with a spatula scraper), stir in half of the flour mixture. Stir until almost blended then stir in the orange juice and remaining flour mixture. Stir until flour is mixed in then mix in the sour cream, being careful not to overbeat the muffin batter.
- Spoon just enough muffin batter into each cup to cover the bottom (about 2 tablespoons – slightly less if you’re making 9). Spoon a rounded teaspoon of cranberry sauce over muffin batter. Add a second layer of muffin batter and a second layer of cranberry sauce. Top muffins with a final layer of batter – it will be stiff and come up over the top of the muffin pan. Drizzle a little cranberry sauce over top, but try to keep it from getting on the pan where it will stick. Bake at 375 for 22 minutes-24 minutes. Let cool in pan for about 5 minutes, then carefully remove from pan.
the blissful baker
what a great way to use up leftover cranberry sauce! these muffins look delicious. i love the cranberry/orange flavor combo.
x3Baking
The muffins are very pretty. It looks like the crumb is pretty delicate. 🙂 I wonder how the cranberry sauce would be in little cheesecake cups.
Greek Girl from Queens
Next time I have some leftover cranberries or cranberry sauce, I’m definitely going to bake up a batch of these beauties. What I did have on hand, though, were a couple of oranges, one very ripe banana, ground almonds and dessicated coconut…with the hubby asking for a sweet, I came up with a batch of what I’ve decided to nickname ‘tropical muffins.’ They were tasty, but I think I’d have liked the cranberry and orange combination more. Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.
Louise
These look really tasty.