Gluten Free Orange Cranberry Muffins

Why I Love These Cranberry Muffins

• Perfectly balanced. Cranberries by nature are on the tart side, so the addition of sugar and orange zest mellows out their mouth-puckering tendencies.
• So holidayish. In America, cranberries are most often served between the Thanksgiving holiday and the new year. So they always feel super festive, and I love adding them to breakfast recipes as well as desserts.
• Easiest ever. You'll just need a whisk and a spoon to make the batter!
• Deliciously gluten-free. Oat flour is the only flour needed for these muffins and it creates a beautifully plush crumb you'd never be able to tell is gluten-free.

Ingredient Notes

I've included an overview of the ingredients needed to make these muffins below, plus some notes. Scroll down to my recipe card at the bottom of this post for the full ingredient amounts and instructions!

• Granulated sugar - For slightly less sweet muffins, you can downgrade the amount of sugar to ½ cup. Conversely, you can increase the sugar to 1 cup if you prefer more cake-y muffins.
• Orange - Use the zest of 1 orange or the zest of 2 mandarin oranges.
• Oat flour - Learn how to make oat flour from whole oats or grab a package (certified gluten-free if needed) from the store. If you don't eat oats, substitute sorghum flour or brown rice flour by weight.
• Baking powder
• Salt - I always use fine sea salt, and table salt works, too.
• Cranberries - Fresh or frozen cranberries, roughly chopped so that they don't overwhelm the muffins, are perfect here.
• Egg - A large egg at room temperature will blend easily into the batter.
• Vegetable oil - Or substitute another neutral oil of choice, such as avocado oil.
• Milk - Either whole or 2% milk is fine.

Easy Adjustments

• Add nuts - Make these into cranberry orange walnut muffins by stirring 1 cup of chopped walnuts into the batter.
• Dried cranberries - Only have dried cranberries? Use 1 cup of chopped dried cranberries for the 1 cup of fresh cranberries.
• Make them vegan - Substitute non-dairy milk for the whole milk and use 1 flax egg substitute for the egg.
• Try lemon - Instead of orange zest, go for a slightly different citrus flavor and swap the zest of 1 lemon for the orange.
• Use 1:1 flour - Instead of oat flour, substitute 240 grams of all-purpose gluten-free flour (try my homemade gluten free flour blend or your preferred store-bought blend).

Proper Storage

• Counter - Store the muffins for up to 3 days in an airtight container on the counter.
• Fridge - To extend the life of the muffins, pop them in the fridge for up to 5 days.
• Freezer - Place cranberry muffins in a sealable freezer-safe bag and keep them in the freezer for up to 1 month. Defrost the muffins in the fridge before serving.