Hubby dear is a picky eater but frankly he does’nt ask for much and almost tries out everything that comes out of the kitchen. There I said it! So now you know who is the guinea pig for all the experiments I do in my cute little kitchen. I decided to bake muffins this week and the inspiration for it comes from one of my recent road trips to the maine coast. On our way, we stopped at a local organic produce store where I was shopping for variety of sauces, jams and what not. At the checkout counter, I spotted these cute little mini orange-cranberry-almond muffins and happened to buy a few for munching on the way.  They were super delicious that I decided to try them at home but eggless and without butter. I am not a vegan but its just a thought that came up with no reason whatsoever. So here I am with the post. The muffins do not have that buttery flavor but loved the taste absolutely. With the sweet and tart taste of cranberries and crunchy walnuts (I substituted walnuts for almonds) and flavored with orange juice, I felt they are just right to kick of your morning over a hot cup of coffee and hubby dear loved it too. I substituted butter with vegetable oil but if you want the buttery flavor you can go ahead and use melted butter.  Here’s how….

Ingredients (Makes about a dozen muffins):

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups All Purpose Flour (Maida)

1 cup  Sugar (Reduce if you prefer the muffins to be a little less sweet)

2 tsps Baking Powder

1 Cup chopped walnuts/almonds (I used walnuts)

Wet Ingredients:

1/3  Cup Vegetable Oil/Melted butter

3/4  Cup Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice (with no pulp)

½ cup water

1 tsp Orange Zest (Optional)

1 Cup Dried sweetened cranberries

Others:

Chopped walnuts and raw sugar for topping

How To:

• Preheat the oven to 375F/190C. Grease a muffin pan or line it with muffin liners.
• Sift the flour, and baking powder in a wide bowl. Mix with sugar, chopped walnuts and set aside.
• In another bowl, mix vegetable oil, orange juice, water, orange zest until combined.
• Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients mix in step 2 and mix just until combined.
• Fold in the dried cranberries to this mixture and combine. Do not overmix.
• Spoon this batter until 3/4th filled in the greased muffin pan.
• Top it with chopped walnuts and sprinkle raw sugar on the top.
• Bake about 20-25 mts or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Transfer the muffin tin, to a cooling rack and let it cool for 10-15 mts before removing them from the pan.