These colorful cranberry chocolate chip muffins are a little sweet and a little tart. They make an amazing breakfast or snack!
One grocery shopping evening, my family and I bought sweetened dried cranberries. Since I like saving money, I bought the store brand. Much to our disappointment, the store brand version of the cranberries were not good. They were hard, dry, and difficult to eat.
I pondered what to do with these cranberries since it pained me to throw them away. My astute 9-year old daughter proclaimed that we should make cranberry muffins. Except she didn’t want white chocolate; rather, she wanted semi-sweet chocolate. Sure thing, kid.
I happily obliged and made these cranberry chocolate chip muffins. To make them healthier, I made them whole wheat and swapped out the oil for unsweetened applesauce. I would have liked to have included orange zest, but alas, we had no oranges in the house.
These muffins turned out to be really, really good. In fact, it’s one of my favorite muffins to date. Now I know that I’m a chocolate girl, but I must say that adding in the sweetened cranberries was a good thing. And the best part is that the otherwise dry and crusty cranberries plumped up a lot during baking. They must have soaked up some liquid from the batter.
The three of us were ecstatic about these muffins, and I know that I will be making them again!
Cranberry chocolate chip muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups white whole wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar packed
- 2 eggs
- ¾ cup milk of choice
- ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup sweetened dried cranberries
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Generously grease or line a standard muffin pan and set it aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, mix together the sugars, eggs, milk, applesauce, and vanilla. Pour this into the large bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until a few dry streaks remain. Fold in the cranberries and chocolate chips until everything just comes together. Do not over mix.
- Evenly distribute the batter into your prepared muffin pan, filling each well about ¾ full. Top with additional cranberries and/or chocolate chips if desired.
- Bake in your preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool before serving.