Cranberry Almond Applesauce Muffins #MuffinMonday

These cranberry almond applesauce muffins are tender and sweet, but not too sweet! They are perfect for snack time or breakfast with the addition of rolled oats.

A couple of weeks ago, I made homemade applesauce because one of lovely ladies who help us care for Mom suggested that applesauce would be handy to help her swallow her pills. It is really is! 

The only problem is that I made so much applesauce (four apples worth) and Mom only eats a little spoonful a day so I was concerned that it would turn bad before we used it up. 

Enter these applesauce muffins! They use 2/3 cup or 173g of applesauce and are absolutely delicious. 

Cranberry Almond Applesauce Muffins

This recipe make a small batch of six regular size muffins. If you have homemade applesauce, by all means, use it but store-bought works fine as well. Just try to buy one without a lot of added sugar. These muffins don’t need it. 

Ingredients

1 cup or 125g flour

1/4 cup or 25g rolled oats

1/4 cup or 50g brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch salt

1 large egg

2/3 cup or 173g applesauce

1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil, plus extra for greasing the muffin pan

1/2 cup or 45g dried cranberries

1/4 cup or 30g sliced toasted almonds

Optional for topping: more dried cranberries and almonds

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease a six-cup muffin pan. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, applesauce and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold until they are just mixed. 

Add the cranberries and almonds and fold again. 

Divide the batter between the six muffin cups. Top with a few cranberries and sliced almonds, if desired. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

Cool on a wire rack. 

Enjoy! 

It's the last Monday of the month so that means it's time for my Muffin Monday friends to share their recipes. Check out the links below: 

• Cinnamon Roll Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Cranberry Almond Applesauce Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Lemon Filled Gingerbread Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Pumpkin Orange and Date Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Sourdough Eggnog Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

Pin these Cranberry Almond Applesauce Muffins!

 .

Cranberry Pecan Quick Bread #BreadBakers

Made with jellied sauce, this cranberry pecan quick bread is full of tart cranberry flavor, rich nutty bits with just enough sweetness to be perfect with a cup of hot tea or coffee.

Last week I was tidying up the pantry. It’s such a great feeling to have all my cans in a row, organized by type. You know, beans together, tomato products side by side. Jalapeños in the back, along with the capers. Not such a great feeling was realizing that I had four, count them, four cans of jellied cranberry sauce. Part of expat life is buying seasonal items whenever you see them, because it’s likely that a holiday will roll around, and that special ingredient you must have will not be available.

But even I have to agree that keeping four cans of jellied cranberry sauce in stock is overkill, especially when pantry space is limited. Inspired by this recipe on the Ocean Spray website (because it uses an entire can - no one wants a half cup of leftover cranberry sauce in June), I am now down to three cans. I loved this cranberry pecan quick bread so much that can number three is earmarked for another loaf.

This is not in any way a sponsored post but I did use Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce. Just so you know, in case you have a can or three lurking in your pantry.

Cranberry Pecan Quick Bread

The original recipe called for whole berry sauce but in our family it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving or Christmas without the jiggly slices, served straight from the can. In my adapted recipe, you need the moisture of the jellied cranberry sauce to balance the added oat bran.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 70g oat bran
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup or 132g brown sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 14-ounce or 397g can jellied cranberry sauce
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup or 130g roughly chopped pecans

Method
Preheat your oven to 350ºF or 180°C. Prepare your loaf pan by greasing it or lining it with baking parchment.

Gently break up the jellied cranberry sauce with a fork, making sure to leave some of it in bigger pieces. Set aside a small handful of the pecans and a couple of tablespoons of the cranberry sauce for topping the batter with before baking.

Whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl.

In another smaller mixing bowl, gently mix together the beaten egg, cranberry sauce, oil and vanilla. You want to keep the cranberry chunks chunky, as much as possible.

Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Fold them together until just mixed.

Sprinkle on the pecans and fold again to distribute the pecans throughout the thick batter.

Spoon the batter evenly into prepared loaf pan. Top with the reserved jellied cranberry sauce and chopped pecans.

Bake until golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 50-55 minutes. If bread begins to brown too quickly, cover it loosely with foil and continue to bake until it is done.

Leave the loaf to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes. Remove the loaf from the pan and transfer it to the wire rack. Cool completely before slicing.

Enjoy!

This month I am hosting our Bread Bakers event with the theme Quick Breads. Although quick breads can take many forms, they have in common the use of other leavening agents instead of yeast to get rise we want in a baked good. I challenged the bakers to bake in loaf pans, rather than making muffins or the like. Check out what a great job they did by clicking on the links below:

• Banana Nut Bread from Sneha's Recipe
• Cheddar Bacon Chive Quick Bread from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Chocolate Quick Bread from Sara's Tasty Buds
• Coconut Sweet Bread from Passion Kneaded
• Cranberry Pecan Quick Bread from Food Lust People Love
• Espresso Banana Quick Bread with Espresso Streusel from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Irish Soda Bread from Anybody Can Bake
• Keto Low Carb Coconut Flour Bread from Cook With Renu
• Lady Grey Date Nut Bread from A Messy Kitchen
• Lemon Blueberry Bread from Palatable Pastime
• Lemon Pistachio Loaf from Ambrosia
• Summer Shandy Beer Bread from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Zucchini Bread from Simply Inspired Meals

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin this Cranberry Pecan Quick Bread!

 .

Cranberry Pistachio Muffins #MuffinMonday

Cranberry pistachio muffins are great on their own for breakfast or teatime, or as part of your holiday buffet table. They aren’t just pretty, they are delicious as well!

When I wrote the first post introducing my new Muffin Monday group back in August of 2015, I had already shared 73 muffins, both sweet and savory, in this space. As we reach the end of 2018, you’ll find those plus another 37 muffin recipes here on Food Lust People Love, and links from my friends to many, many more! I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow bakers for joining me each month, adding extra value to each of my posts with their beautiful list of recipes. Love you all!

And as this is my final post for 2018, I’d also like to thank you, my readers. This year was a rough one for me, one of personal loss of family and friends that I hold dear, not to mention my wonderful kitchen helper, Beso the Boxer. My kitchen is a place of comfort and relaxation for me, a safe haven that keeps me sane. It gives me joy to create recipes to share with you and that saved me this year. Thank you for reading and commenting! A very special thank you to my email subscribers who get a short introduction in their inboxes whenever I post a new recipe. I appreciate you all! (Want to subscribe? Please click here or use the little box in the righthand column that says, Great Recipes - Free!)

Fun fact: My most viewed recipe of all time is a muffin! I posted these Cheesy Spinach Muffins back in 2013 and they’ve stayed on top ever since. No other recipe even comes close.

By the way, Happy New Year! Do you need some party appetizers perfect for New Year’s Eve or Day? Try my Black-eyed Pea Bacon Cocktail Muffins!

Cranberry Pistachio Muffins

Maybe you’ve got some whole berry cranberry sauce of the jellied kind left over from Christmas. If so, these cranberry pistachio muffins make perfect use of that abundance. If not, buy a can on sale and bake these babies for your New Year’s Day breakfast. I used the one from Ocean Spray.

Baking muffins for breakfast couldn’t be easier! Starting the night before, simply measure out your dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and cover with cling film. Whisk together your wet ingredients, cover with cling film and store in the refrigerator. When you wake up in the morning, turn the oven on to preheat and follow the recipe from where you mix your wet and dry ingredients together. Fresh warm muffins in fewer than 30 minutes!

Ingredients for 16 muffins
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 240ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml whole berry cranberry sauce (140g)
1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup or 60g slivered pistachios, plus extra for decoration, if desired

Also optional to decorate:
12 fresh or frozen cranberries

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your muffin pan by greasing it or lining it with paper or silicone muffin cups. A few years ago one of my lovely daughters gave me a set of silicone muffin cups from Crate and Barrel so I used those occasionally. They stand up on their own so you don’t even need a muffin pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the cranberry sauce, milk, oil and eggs.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Fold in the pistachios.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. In the case of these 16, a 1/4 cup each was just about right.

Cut the fresh or frozen cranberries in half.

Sprinkle the muffin tops with more pistachio slivers to decorate. Then distribute the halved cranberries.

Bake your muffins in the preheated oven about 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for a few minutes and then remove the muffins from the pan or silicone cups to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Check out the wonderful muffins my talented muffin baking friends are sharing today!

• Bacon Cheddar Corn Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Bacon Scallion Corn Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Blackberry Muffins from Making Miracles
• Cranberry Pistachio Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Mini Donut Muffins from Passion Kneaded

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

Pin these Cranberry Pistachio Muffins! 

  .

Orange Cranberry Gingerbread #BakingBloggers

Satisfy your gingerbread cravings this year with my pumped up orange cranberry gingerbread. Cover it with orange cream cheese icing or just a sprinkle of powdered sugar. Gorgeous, either way.

When my girls were little, we loved baking gingerbread as an afterschool snack, especially in the weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays. It wasn’t just that we liked eating gingerbread, well, maybe that’s why the girls liked baking it, but my favorite part, not being much of a sweet eater, was the delightful aroma that filled the house.

Ginger, cinnamon and deep rich molasses baking smell absolutely fabulous in the oven. If you’ve never baked gingerbread, you don’t know what you are missing.

Orange Cranberry Gingerbread

I’ve adapted this recipe from one on the lovely blog Indigo Scones, but if you read Ellen’s post, she got the original recipe from Joy the Baker so I must give both credit for the inspiration.

Ingredients
For the cake:
2 1/4 cups or 280g all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup or 180ml canola or other light oil
3/4 cup or 150g granulated sugar
3 medium (or 2 large) eggs
3/4 cup or 180ml fresh orange juice
1/2 cup or 65g dried cranberries
3/4 cup or 180ml unsulphured molasses
1/4 cup or 60ml honey
zest from 1 large orange (mine weighed about 10.5 oz or 300g - big guy, lots of zest!)

To serve: powdered sugar or orange cream cheese icing

Optional but highly recommended – For cream cheese icing
8 oz or 227g cream cheese
1 lb or 450g powdered sugar
Zest 1/2 large orange
Pinch sea salt
3-4 teaspoons fresh orange juice

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 9×9-inch or 23cm baking pan by lining it with baking parchment paper. As you’ll see from the photos, mine turned out quite thick so if you couldn’t probably use an even wider pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.

In a large bowl whisk together the oil, sugar, and eggs until they turn thick and pale. I used my stand mixer because I already did my upper body exercises for the day swimming laps but you can certainly use a handheld whisk.

Heat your orange juice up in a small pot on the stove or in a microwaveable vessel until it is quite hot but not quite boiling. Add in the dried cranberries and set aside to soften.

Stir the molasses, honey, and orange zest in the bowl with the sugar, oil and eggs.

Now add the dry ingredients, all at once, to the wet ingredients. Stir together until entirely incorporated.

Remove a tablespoon or so of the cranberries from the orange juice (to use for decoration) and put them between two paper towels to dry.

Add the warm orange juice and the balance of the cranberries to the mixing bowl and gently stir until the batter is smooth, not counting the cranberries. Those will all sink to the bottom so keep that in mind as you pour the batter into your pan.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan. Try to distribute those cranberries at the bottom as evenly as you can.

Bake in the preheated oven for 35-45 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. I made the mistake of trying to turn my pan halfway though and the middle sunk a little bit. Just leave it alone and yours should be fine.

Cool completely on a wire rack. Sprinkle with the reserved cranberries and powdered sugar to serve or if you want to push the boat out, make the orange cream cheese icing.

In the bowl of your stand mixer or with electric beaters in another mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and salt, along with the orange zest, until it is all well combined and lump-free.

Add just enough fresh orange juice, beating well in between additions, until you reach spreading consistency. Mine took about 3 teaspoons.

Spoon the icing on top of the gingerbread and spread it to the edges, letting just a little bit hang down the sides. Sprinkle on the reserved cranberries.

Cut into squares to serve.

Enjoy!

This month's Baking Bloggers theme is, I'm sure can guess by the list below: Gingerbread! Many thanks to our host Sue from Palatable Pastime and her able co-manager, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm.

• Gingerbread Cake with Lemon Glaze by Sneha's Recipe
• Ginger Cream Sandwich Cake by Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Gingerbread Madeleines by Caroline's Cooking
• Gingerbread Men by Cook with Renu
• Gingerbread Sandwich Cookies by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Gingerbread Cookies by Simply Inspired Meals
• Louisiana Syrup Cake (Cajun Gingerbread) by Palatable Pastime
• Russian Pryanik Gingerbread by Pandemonium Noshery
• Orange Cranberry Gingerbread by Food Lust People Love
• Piernik by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Poussins aux Pain d'Epices by Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interesting in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

Pin Orange Cranberry Gingerbread!

 .

Cranberry Lardy Cake #BreadBakers

Traditionally, this British afternoon teacake is made with raisins, sultanas and/or currants. My cranberry lardy cake is studded with dried cranberries, but fear not, it is amply filled with the requisite lard and sugar, for a properly respectable British teatime treat.

This month my Bread Bakers are baking up yeast cakes, a subject that required some research on my part. I came up with a list of possibilities, mostly from old English recipes, to be honest. Before the days of chemical rising agents, like baking powder, the most reliable ways to get a cake to rise was either to add eggs or yeast.

Lardy cake caught my fancy because, as previously mentioned here, I have a weakness for caramel. When baked up properly - that is with plenty of lard and sugar! - the bottom turns into a crunchy caramel. As the cake is flipped for serving, you end up with a gorgeous caramel top. Who can resist that?

Cranberry Lardy Cake

My recipe below is a combination of a couple I found on the internet from The Happy Foodie and Hobb House Bakery. Check out this YouTube video to watch one of the Baker Brothers make their version. That first link is actually the one that gave me the idea to add cranberries. The recipe called for crimson grapes, which I’d never heard of. Cranberries, on the other hand, I keep always on hand.

Ingredients
For the dough:
3/4 cup or 175ml warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 oz or 7g dried yeast
2 1/4 cups or 285g strong white bread flour plus extra for kneading
Scant 1/4 cup or 50g lard
Pinch flaky sea salt

For the lard and sugar filling:
1 cup or 225g caster (very fine) sugar, plus extra for the pan
1 cup or 200g lard, at room temperature
1/2 cup or 65g dried cranberries, plus extra for decorating, if desired

Method
Mix the yeast into the warm water with one teaspoon of the sugar. Set aside.

Measure the flour, salt and lard into a big bowl and use a pastry cutter to cut the lard into the flour.

When the yeast mixture has started to bubble up, pour it into the flour bowl and mix all the ingredients together.

If you are using an electric mixer with a bread hook, knead the dough for 10 minutes. If not, sprinkle a little flour onto a clean work surface and tip the dough out of the bowl onto it. Knead the dough for 15 minutes. Once you have a smooth and elastic dough, pop it back into the bowl and cover it with cling film.

Leave the bowl in a warm place for the dough to rise to twice its size or for 1 hour, whichever comes first.

Meanwhile make the lard and sugar mix by creaming them together in a mixer or with a wooden spoon.

Prepare your 8 in or 20cm round nonstick baking pan by coating it with 1/3 cup or 87g of the lard sugar mixture. Use a rubber spatula to spread it over the bottom and up the sides. Sprinkle an extra tablespoon of sugar over the bottom.

When it’s risen, gently press the air out of the dough and form it into a ball. Pop it on a well-floured work surface and use a rolling pin to roll it into a circle about 15 in or 38cm across.

Divide the remaining lard/sugar paste in half. Use a spoon to distribute one half over the dough circle. Use a rubber spatula to spread the paste over the dough, leaving a small margin of dough around the sides uncovered.

Starting on one side, fold the dough towards the middle. Continue until till all the sides are folded over. (See the first five photos below.) Again, this video shows the method so much better than words can explain.

Let the dough rest for a few minutes, then roll it out again to a 15 in or 38cm circle. Spoon the other half of the lard mixture over the dough circle. (Photo 6 above) Spread it with the rubber spatula. Now sprinkle on the cranberries.

Repeat the folding process till all of the sides have been folded in again. Place the dough in the prepared pan.

Cover loosely with cling film and leave the cranberry lardy cake to rest and rise for two hours. It doesn’t really rise very high but it does fill the pan.

When your two hours are almost up, preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Bake the lardy cake for 45 minutes, covering the top with foil if it starts to get too brown. Remove the pan from the oven and leave to cool for just a few minutes.

Leave it any longer and you may find that the caramel will stick to your pan, even it it’s nonstick. If this happens to you, use a blunt knife to ease it off the pan so the whole cake will come out in one piece.

If necessary, return any pieces that stayed in the pan to the top of the cake. Or just eat them. I cannot tell you how wonderful this crunchy caramel is! It's the perfect topping for the yeast cake underneath.

Sprinkle with tablespoon or two dried cranberries to decorate, if desired. Enjoy!

Many thanks to this month's Bread Bakers host, Archana from The Mad Scientist Kitchen. Check out the other recipes our fellow bakers made for the yeasted cake challenge:

• Almond Stollen from Baking Sense
• Baba-au-Rhum from Ambrosia
• Chocolate Babka from Sneha's Recipes
• Cranberry Lardy Cake from Food Lust People Love
• Drozdzowe from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Hartford Election Cake from All That's Left are the Crumbs
• Orange Yeast Cake from Cooking with Renu
• Yeasted Lemon Cake from Gayathri's Cookspot
• Yeasted Orange Cake from The Mad Scientist Kitchen
• Yeasted Pound Cake from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Yeasted Transylvanian Cinnamon Sugar Cake from Sizzling Tastebuds

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin it! 

 .