Cranberry Orange Muffins

Jump to Recipe

It’s that time of year! If you’re looking for a muffin that tastes like the holidays, you need to try my cranberry orange muffins with streusel topping! They’re bursting with bright citrus flavor, thanks to the orange zest, orange juice and fresh cranberries. Plus, couldn’t be easier to make! This is a perfect recipe to make ahead for busy mornings, this holiday season or to enjoy as a snack.

These cranberry orange muffins are incredibly fluffy on the inside!

This muffin recipe is a prime example of why I love baking at home. Sometimes homemade just tastes so much better than store-bought! When you smell these in the oven, and enjoy one while they’re still warm, you’ll understand exactly what i’m talking about! These muffins are so tender and fluffy, with bursts of tart flavor that’s balanced out by a sweet streusel topping. Better yet, they’re simple to make and can feed a crowd!

Ingredients you’ll need for orange cranberry muffins:

Muffin batter:

Softened butter
Granulated sugar
Brown sugar
Eggs
Sour cream or plain greek yogurt
Vanilla extract
Orange zest and juice
All-purpose flour
Baking soda
Baking powder
Fresh cranberries

Crumble topping:

Cold butter
All-purpose flour
Brown sugar
Ground cinnamon
Ground nutmeg

Tossing the fresh cranberries in flour before adding them to the batter ensures they won't sink to the bottom of the muffins once baked.

Make sure you use fresh tart cranberries for this recipe!

Although I do love dried cranberries, set them aside and save them for your salads because you’ll need fresh cranberries for this recipe! The fresh, juicy cranberries will burst and add moisture (and flavor) to the muffins while they bake.

My top tips for the best batch of homemade muffins:

Don’t over-mix the batter! You just want to incorporate the dry ingredients until there’s no flour remaining to ensure these turn out moist and fluffy.
Toss the cranberries in 2 tbsp of flour before adding them to the batter. This prevents them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins.
Line your muffin tin with cupcake liners. This prevents the muffins from sticking to the pan.
Fill the cupcake liners all the way to the top! Filling them up all the way will help give the look of a bakery style muffins as muffins rise in the oven. You should have enough batter for exactly 12 muffins.
Don’t skimp on the streusel topping! It adds a crunchy texture to the tops of the muffins and sweetness too!

Filling the muffin tins all the way to the top will help result in a tall, bakery style muffin.

You can make this as a loaf cake or mini muffins too!

Follow the directions as is, but switch up the pans if you like. For a cranberry orange loaf cake, add the batter to a parchment lined 9×5 loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes. For mini muffins, spoon the batter into mini muffin tins and bake for 12-15 minutes. These can over-bake easily so check them with a toothpick for doneness to ensure you’ll have tender muffins!

How to make cranberry orange muffins with a streusel topping:

Combine the wet ingredients.
Sprinkle in the dry ingredients and fold everything together to form a batter.
Toss the fresh cranberries in flour, then fold them into the batter as well.
Line a muffin pan, then spoon batter into the muffin cups (all the way to the top).
Make the streusel topping and sprinkle it evenly on top of all the muffins.
Bake!

These cranberry orange muffins with streusel topping are the perfect combination of tart and sweet thanks to their crunchy topping.

Tips and tricks:

A tip for zesting oranges:

Try your best to zest only the orange part of the skin. It’s ok if you get some of the white, just don’t go crazy because that can be bitter tasting. To avoid zesting the white part, work in small motions and continuously rotate the orange as you zest!

A tip for making the streusel:

Use your hands to mush and flatten out the butter cubes into the flour and sugar. You’ll want to do this until the butter is broken down into tiny, pea sized pieces. When you’re done, you should have a crumbly (sort of dry) mixture. Don’t worry though, you’re doing it correctly!

My favorite way to get even muffins without a scale:

Using a triggered cookie or ice cream scoop! When you scoop the batter into the prepared pan with a tool like this, it’s easy to keep track of how many scoop each muffin has!

Pro tip:

Don’t open the oven to rotate your muffin pan until the muffins are at least halfway baked! Leaving the oven shut for at least the first half of baking will help ensure the muffins rise nice and high! Every time you open the oven, heat escapes and therefore won’t give your muffins as much of a rise.

Another pro tip:

You can add the cinnamon and nutmeg to the muffin batter or to the crumble mixture (or both)! I like it in the crumble topping because I think you can taste the spices more that way. Maybe I’m crazy but I’ve convinced myself that since the crumble topping of the muffins hits your tastebuds first, those warm holiday spices are the first thing you taste when you take a bite, which I love!

Here’s the best way to store these:

Set a paper towel in the bottom of an airtight container, then place the cooled muffins in a single layer on top. The paper towel prevents the muffins from becoming soggy! When stored like this at room temperature, they should last up to 4 days.

Once baked, cranberry orange muffins can be enjoyed right away!

Print Recipe