Fresh Cranberry Orange Muffins
These cranberry muffins will be your family's new favorite! They're so fluffy and delicious. Plus they're made with wholesome ingredients!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 30, 2024
These fluffy cranberry orange muffins will make your house smell like the holidays! I hope they become your new favorite holiday muffin recipe. They’re fluffy and moist and delicious—everything I want a muffin to be.
These muffins are bursting with fresh cranberry and orange flavor. This recipe calls for fresh cranberries, which are generally available in United States grocery stores from October or November through December. You can also use frozen cranberries, but I don’t recommend dried cranberries here.
These muffins are made with wholesome ingredients like whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt. They’re naturally sweetened with honey or maple syrup. You can keep those details to yourself, though—no one will guess that these muffins are healthier than most.
You can easily mix these together by hand. No mixer required. Serve them for breakfast or brunch, or bring them to your holiday parties!
It took me eight tries to get these muffins just right, but they were absolutely worth the effort. I’m sharing the recipe again because they’re just so wonderful this time of year.
Cranberry Orange Muffin Ingredients
Here’s what you’ll need to make these cranberry-studded beauties:
Flour
I like to use white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour to make these muffins a little healthier. White whole wheat flour (available in health food stores or well-stocked grocery stores) is made with white wheat berries instead of red, and has a more mild flavor as a result. As long as your whole wheat flour hasn’t been sitting on the shelf too long, your muffins will not have a strong “whole wheat” taste. In fact, if your flour smells rancid or your muffins taste bitter, your flour has gone bad.
You can also use all-purpose flour for the most traditional muffin flavor and fluff. To make these muffins gluten free, choose Bob’s Red Mill’s gluten-free all-purpose blend. No adjustment to quantity needed with either one.
Tip: The proper way to measure flour is to spoon flour into your measuring cup and level off the top with a knife. Do not scoop flour into your cups, or you could end up with way too much flour, and dry/tough muffins.
Baking powder and baking soda
These are leavening agents, which help the muffins rise so they are light and fluffy. These ingredients are not the same thing and are not interchangeable, so be careful with your measurements!
Coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil or butter
Like all muffins, this recipe requires some fat to yield tender, rich and delicious results. I typically use virgin coconut oil and can hardly taste it. If you use olive oil, I recommend a mildly flavored one, like California Olive Ranch’s Everyday variety. You certainly can’t go wrong with unsalted butter.
Honey or maple syrup
Instead of sugar, these muffins are naturally sweetened with honey or maple syrup! These do impart some delicious flavor, so choose your favorite.
Eggs
Eggs also act as a leavener, helping the muffins rise while also imparting richness. If you have an egg allergy or you’re a vegan, you can substitute flax eggs (see recipe notes).
Greek yogurt
Yogurt replaces sour cream, but offers the same delicious richness and tang. Yum! Check the recipe notes for a buttermilk alternative (which can be made vegan).
Vanilla extract
You know, for some luscious vanilla flavor.
Orange zest
The zest of one orange to infuse these muffins with flavor. After you take the zest off the orange, you can slice it up and eat it. I do recommend buying on organic orange if you can find one, since pesticide residue sticks to the rind.
Fresh cranberries
One bag is more than enough. You’ll blitz these in the food processor before folding them into the batter. If you’re using frozen cranberries, do not thaw them before using. Blitz them in the food processor as directed and promptly fold them into the batter. If you have leftover cranberries, you can freeze them for up to one year.
Dried cranberries are not a good substitute for fresh cranberries, for reasons elaborated in the next section.
Turbinado (raw) sugar
This is optional, but I recommend it. Turbinado sugar is large crystal sugar that lends an irresistible sparkling, crunchy top to the muffins. I bet you could even take a tiny bag of raw sugar home from your local coffee shop!
Cranberry Orange Muffin Recipe Development
I thought this recipe was going to be so easy. Take my blueberry muffin recipe, substitute cranberries for the blueberries, add orange zest—done. Not so fast, Kate!
Problem: The fresh cranberries were so much bigger than blueberries and so tart that they left mouth-puckering polka dots in the muffins. Fortunately, I found a clue in America’s Test Kitchen’s cranberry muffin recipe.
Solution: Blitz the fresh cranberries in a food processor for a few seconds to break them up. That way, you get delicious little bits of cranberries in every bite. This also allowed me to double the amount of cranberries for maximum cranberry flavor.
Problem: The muffins were still far too tart, though (and I like tart).
Solution: To counteract the tartness of the cranberries, I added 1/4 cup more honey or maple syrup, which made these muffins perfectly sweet—not too much, not too little.
Problem: The extra moisture from the additional liquid sweetener made the muffins flatten out on the top. I wanted beautifully domed, fluffy muffins, so I tried decreasing the amount of yogurt, tweaking the baking powder and baking soda, and I was almost ready to give up…
Solution: I went back to the original formula and added 1/4 cup more flour. The muffins rose like a dream!
Eight tries later, I landed on perfect cranberry orange muffins! I hope you’ll make them while cranberries are still in season.
Watch How to Make Fluffy Cranberry Orange Muffins
Recommended Equipment
This section contains affiliate links.
USA-made muffin tin: This sturdy muffin tin bakes beautiful muffins and has a non-toxic, non-stick silicone coating. I never have to grease the cups!
11-cup food processor: This Cuisinart is not too big or too small, and blitzes the cranberries in five seconds.
Microplane: It’s so easy to remove the zest from citrus with this handy tool.
Love these muffins?
Here are more of my favorite naturally sweetened, whole-wheat muffin recipes!
- Healthy Apple Muffins
- Healthy Banana Muffins
- Healthy Blueberry Muffins
- Healthy Carrot Muffins
- Healthy Raspberry Muffins
- Healthy Pumpkin Muffins
- Healthy Zucchini Muffins
Please let me know how these muffins turn out for you in the comments! I love hearing from you, and hope the recipe is a big hit.
Fresh Cranberry Orange Muffins
These cranberry muffins will be your family’s new favorite! Don’t tell them the recipe calls for healthy ingredients. These fluffy muffins are bursting with fresh cranberry and orange flavor, plus they’re whole grain and naturally sweetened! Recipe yields 12 muffins.
Ingredients
- 2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
- 2 cups white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- ⅓ cup melted coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil or melted unsalted butter
- ¾ cup honey or maple syrup
- 2 eggs, preferably at room temperature
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt*
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Zest from 1 medium orange (about 1 teaspoon), preferably organic
- 1 tablespoon turbinado sugar (also called raw sugar), for sprinkling on top
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease all 12 cups of your muffin tin or line them with papers, if necessary.
- In a food processor, process the cranberries for about 5 seconds, until they are broken into little bits (but not puréed—see photos). Set aside.
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In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir to combine.
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In a medium mixing bowl, combine the oil and honey and beat together with a whisk. Add the eggs and whisk to combine, then add the yogurt, vanilla and orange zest. Mix well.
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Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix with a big spoon, just until combined (a few lumps are ok). Gently fold the cranberry pieces into the batter.
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Divide the batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups (they will be quite full). Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with turbinado sugar. Bake the muffins for 15 to 18 minutes, or until the muffins are golden on top and a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.
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Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack to cool. You might need to run a butter knife along the outer edge of the muffins to loosen them from the pan. If you have leftover muffins, store them, covered, at room temperature for 2 days, or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Freeze leftover muffins for up to 3 months.
Notes
Recipe adapted from my healthy blueberry muffins.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Thank you for another wonderful recipe. These turned out great, like all your other muffins. These might be the best yet. I never cease to be amazed at how fluffy whole wheat baked goods can be. I cut back maple syrup by 1/8 of a cup and they were sweet enough for my taste, but I don’t like my muffins too sweet. I added a few tablespoons of water to compensate for less liquid. I have enjoyed several of your recipes this holiday season, will leave my reviews on those pages.
Best yet? I will take it! I’m a big fan myself. Thanks so much for your comment and review, Cora.
I made these over the holiday break to use up some leftover cranberries. They were really great! Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome!! Thanks for your review, Lauren.
Absolutely delicious!! My mom and I made them for Christmas and loved them. Even my husband, who isn’t a huge cranberry fan, asked for more of these! Thanks for the recipe. :)
Muffins winning! Thanks for sharing, Robyn.
Loved these muffins! So full of cranberries. They are light & fluffy. They disappeared quickly.
I’m glad they didn’t last long. Thanks for the review, Ann!
I made these this morning and they are fabulous! I love them. I didn’t have any whole grain flour (I’m allergic to wheat) so I had to grind oats into oat flour and used that. They are great! Sharon
I found this recipe last weekend and decided to try them for a healthy new year snack but they were so good they didn’t make it to the new year! I had to make them again this weekend as they were a huge hit.
They are hard to not eat right up! Thanks, Erin!
Delicious!! I made these with the buttermilk/dried cranberry/.5 cup honey subs and they turned out great! Next time I want to try with fresh cranberries.
I’m glad they worked with dried! Thanks for sharing what you did!
Has anyone tried making this recipe with craisins?
I recommend doing a search of the comments to see. I know a lot of people have asked and I wouldn’t know for sure without trying it for this one. It was a bit tricky as you can see from my post. Be sure to comment what you think if you do try it, Ashley!
I make your muffins all the time but these were AMAZING!
I made the vegan version as I always do and I read your post on all the effort you went through to perfect the recipe. Thank you Kate…these were the best yet. Love following you and I have your cook book ❤️
You’re so sweet! I want to make sure it will work and be delicious. Thanks for your review, Diana!
these are nothing short of delicious. made them today for my friends. yummmm. and healthy!
kait
I’m glad you loved them, Kaitlyn!
Enjoying one with my coffee this morning! These are fantastic i appreciate the effort you put in to get them to perfect!
You’re welcome, Sam!
Just made these and they’re fantastic. Didn’t rise very well, but that could’ve been because I subbed half of the flour for oatmeal … ?
(I have been making your orange/cranberry/pecan granola for years now, sometimes weekly, so thought that I could perhaps turn these into orange-cran-granola muffins, also adding the cinnamon and pecans)
Anyway, they taste great and despite the puny rise, they are fluffy and very yummy:)
That would be the case, Olivia. Typically, you can substitute oats for flour. You could add 1/3 oats in addition and that should work ok. It works for most my other muffin recipes.
These are amazing! Taste better than a box mix and uses healthy ingredients so you can’t feel too guilty eating more than one.
I’m glad you like them, Christa!
Love the idea of pulsing the cranberries in the food processor. I’ve always just kept my whole. Will definitely have to try this :)
Let me know what you think!
I made your delicious Fluffy Cranberry Orange Muffins and love them! I usually slice my cranberries for the pretty star design, but I chopped them in a blender this time and actually prefer how much more red the chopped pieces look. I shared some with my neighbors and they love the recipe, too.
MLW
Thanks for sharing, Mary!
Absolutely delicious! Super moist and flavourful! Mine did stick to the bottom of the muffin papers (they were the cheapy child’s cupcake papers) so will try again (yay) with better Paper Chef parchment liners.
I’m glad you liked them, Kim! You can try to oil the bottom if you need to. I appreciate the review.
This looks great. Can’t wait to eat it.
Let me know what you think when you try it, Heather!
These are delicious! I made them this afternoon, and my kids and I loved them. I added some pepitas in the batter and sprinkled a few on top as well. Thank you so much for all your wonderful recipes!! We use them all the time in my family, and your cookbook as well :)
Great to hear, Sandra! Love the peptias!
To borrow a phrase from Mary Berry, these are quite scrummy! I was thrilled to find your recipe as a healthier version of these muffins. I used coconut oil and honey and non-fat Greek yogurt, zest from a large orange (extra flavor, no complaints!), plus I added a generous tsp of cinnamon, and I used demerara sugar instead of turbinado. I am so thrilled with the flavor and moistness of these! The honey & vanilla add a comforting richness to the flavor and a balance to the tart cranberries. For some reason, I had batter leftover after filling my 12 muffins, enough to make two jumbo muffins which took an extra 10 minutes to bake. I’m going to give some of these to my neighbors who always help me with shoveling. As I am a fan of making apple cranberry pie, I’m thinking of adding some grated apple to my next batch to give them that flavor combo as a variation. But this recipe is a keeper; you definitely have a winner with this one!!!
Awesome muffins Kate. My boyfriend says best ever! I agree.
Question…living in southwestern Ontario, fresh cranberries are only available seasonally around Christmas. But sometimes I can find fresh-frozen during other times of the year. Would they be too “wet” after they are thawed out and alter the results? I remember reading your description on how hard you worked on getting the right balance of moisture in this recipe. Thank you…I have your book…also, I’m vegan so I appreciate all your efforts to accommodate that choice.
Best ever, I love it! Thanks for sharing, Diana. I would worry about the additional moisture, but I don’t have specific tips for you with this one. If you try it, let me know!
Thanks Kate. I will be sure to let you know if I try it. ❣️
Moist and tasty, healthier than most. Touches all the bases. Also quite a simple method. Thanks for doing the work, it clearly made the difference.
Thanks for commenting, Dennis!
This was a great recipe! They looked gorgeous and were nice and large and not overly sweet. My daughter inhaled them! I used frozen Cranberries and pulsed them when they were half frozen. No extra liquid off them like other frozen fruit. I used vanilla Greek yogurt and honey and olive oil.
Has anyone tried replacing the oil with applesauce. I normally do that in recipes but I wonder if it would make them way too moist as I found it was a moist dense cake texture.
I’m happy you liked it, Lisa! I’m not sure on the applesauce, but you could see in the comments from other readers what they suggest.
Going to make this today but we couldn’t find fresh cranberries! Got frozen….How should I go about this? Just thaw and treat as the fresh ones?
I’m sorry for my delay! Frozen has worked well for some. Checkout the comments to see what others recommend!
I just made these and they were delicious! Thank you for the wonderful recipe. <3
You’re welcome, Chris! Thanks for the review!
Hello Kate and Cookie,
I was just looking over your receipt the fluffy and cranberry and orange muffins, I was just wo drying if I couldn’t get hold of fresh cranberries, would dried cranberries or frozen ones be alright and if do Hi will would I need to use?
Ki d Regards,
Alexandra.
I just love your recipes.
Thank you so much!!!
Hi ALexandra! I know some readers have used frozen. I would check the comments to see what they did.
Way too much hype cranberry. Use half!
I’m sorry you didn’t love it. Thanks for your feedback!
Kate, these are incredible! I’m on a Low FODMAP diet so I substituted the wheat flour with a mix of Low FODMAP flour, buckwheat flour and Teff flour. I used your recommended changes for dried cranberries using 3/4 cup of dried cranberries, 1 3/4 cup flour and 1/2 cup maple syrup. I baked them for 15 minutes at 205 Celcius. They were light and fluffy and SO divine that I don’t want to share them.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I’m glad they worked so well with your changes and you were able to make them work based on your needs!
Could you add fresh orange juice to this recipe?
I wouldn’t recommend it. It would likely been too liquid and interact with the other ingredients.
I made your cranberry orange muffins, they are delicious!
I didn’t have fresh cranberries so, I used a mix of dried cranberries and fresh blueberries. Also, I used oat flour. I think they turned out great!
THank you for sharing your tasty recipes.
Thanks for sharing your variation, Dawn!
Delicious, soft, full of flavour! Thankyou!
I was short on cranberries so added some white choc chips and cut back the honey. The whole family loved them – even my daughter who doesn’t usually like cranberries.
You’re welcome, Helen!
Could I use greek gods honey yogurt for both the yogurt and honey ingredients?
You could try it, but it might be on the dryer side since honey adds sweetness and moisture. Let me know!
I had a hankering for cranberry orange muffins, they don’t always sell them around where I live but I also love making healthy choices. I came across this and am so excited to try it!! Thank you for giving us healthy muffins choices, I printed three different muffin recipes
These were fantastic. And mine even looked liked the picture. You’re recipes, as always, are amazing. I added big pieces of walnuts on the top.
Hooray! Thank you for sharing, Danielle.
Excellent recipe. I really like how the cranberries are in smaller pieces.
These were a hit. I didn’t blend the cranberries as my food processor is packed away and the cranberries were frozen. My kids and husband loved them!!
Thanks for sharing, Christine!
Three weeks ago I stumbled across this gorgeous mutt named Cookie, her owner bakes healthy so I thought I would give a recipe a try. I wanted to make these but could not find cranberries anywhere. Well I bought a bag this past weekend and picked up white whole wheat flour, my attempt with Gluten Free flour made her Healthy Blueberry Muffins dense. These turned out awesome and very flavorful. Thank you Cookie for inspiring Kate so much. Next may be the Healthy Zucchini Muffins or Healthy Raspberry Muffins. Cookie keep up the inspiration and I look forward to baking more of these recipes.
Just found this recipe and made them last night. Both my boys (9 and 7) had them for breakfast with rave reviews! And my house smells delicious!! Thank you!
Wonderful to hear, Colleen!
Hello! I was wondering if you had any recommendations about adding chopped walnuts to these muffins, in terms of changing the quantities of other ingredients. The recipe looks great – I can’t wait to try it!
I haven’t tried it, but may work. I know they work in some of my other recipes, although this one is different with the cranberry.
Wow! These are incredible!! Beautiful texture, subtle sweetness (I used maple syrup) and great tartness, very well balanced! I had some left over cranberry sauce that I had made using maple syrup so I used mostly cranberry sauce with a handful of fresh chopped cranberries and they turned out beautifully. Thank you for sharing this gem! I can’t wait to make them again.
I’m excited you loved them, Brinleigh! Thanks for your comment and review.
Hi – I found your receipt when I was looking for a healthy muffin to make with my homemade cranberry sauce. I was wondering if you thought I could use that instead of the cranberries to make this recipe?
Hi! Unfortunately, I tried making these so many different ways and this was the best result. I’m afraid to tell you to try it, Linda!
What a pity that I didn’t see this yesterday. I used my whole bag of fresh cranberries and made a great sauce. This is what I really wanted to make, though. None of the similar recipes I looked at asked to chop the cranberries..and I know that creates sour, unpleasant spots in an otherwise good batter. I’ll definitely make this, even if I have to make do with frozen
Hi I think I’m a bit late to this post but I was wondering how moist these muffins are supposed to be?
I kept them in for almost three times as long as you said, increase the temp to 450 and they still weren’t coming out perfectly clean.
Not sure if it’s the nature of the muffin since they have fresh fruit and yogurt or if I did something wrong?
I did bake them in silicon muffins moulds, so could that be the culprit?
Besides being particularly wet they are super delicious and this was a recipe I so wanted to love!
Any tips for making them again are greatly appreciated!
I always refer to your blog and cookbook anytime I make dinner or bake something. You’re the best!!
So mine didn’t turn out as dark as yours. They were kind of pale and the texture inside was kind of off. Not like normal muffins!
What did I do wrong? Lol
Thanks for another terrific recipe, Kate! I made these today and used maple syrup and canola oil. They turned out really well and are perfect comfort food.
You’re welcome, Rebecca! Thanks for your review.
I used 1/4C. of the orange juice and 1/4 C. Of the sugar to soak 1 cup dehydrated cranberries in overnight.
Could I use this recipe for a cranberry orange bread?
I haven’t tried it, sorry!
I just whipped these up quickly and genuinely couldn’t decide whether to share them with the office or keep them all to myself :) they were quick, absolutely delicious and I LOVE the nutritious swaps made. Easily a new favorite muffin recipe! Thank you!
Hi! Do you think Agave syrup would work?
I’m not sure without trying it, sorry!
Thanks for replying. I will give it a try because thats what I have and always use as a sweetener. Maybe I’ll make up for the lack of maple flavor in another way. Thanks for the recipe!
The muffins look so good! You gave a lot of different options. I’ll have to make them and find out if almond or coconut flour would work to lower the carbs. Yum!
Thanks for sharing, Melissa!
My muffins did not rise with a dome like top and they were dense. Did not taste tart as chopping (no food processor so cut them in half or quarters depending on the size of each berry) the fresh cranberries only added some red color. Making again today and leaving most of the berries whole and using half all purpose white flour.
Hi, I’m sorry to hear that. What flour did you use the first time? Did you by chance over stir them?