Surprise, Surprise…What’s Inside?

Looks like an ordinary orange… (except for the slice in the middle)

Surprise!! There’s a Orange Cranberry Muffin baked inside!

A muffin baked in an orange. An unusual presentation of a wonderfully orange flavored muffin studded with tart dried cranberries.

My Sugar High Friday #23 submission! 

Orange Cranberry Muffin

1 tsp. orange zest

3/4 cup dried cranberries

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

2/3 cup oil

1 3/4 cup flour

1 1/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/8 tsp Baking Powder

3/4 tsp Salt

Sift dry ingredients in one bowl. Combine wet ingredients in another. Mix the zest and cranberries together and add to dry ingredients. Mix wet into dry – until just combined. Batter is very wet. Put batter in hollowed out orange filling it 3/4 full. I placed my orange halves in a muffin tin to keep them upright.

Bake 350* for 20-25 minutes.

Baking in the orange gives the muffin an incredible orange flavor. When I hollowed out the orange I left some fruit in tack to add moisture, flavor and to protect the bitter pith from flavoring the muffin.

Use this trick as an alternative to muffin liners or this would also work if you are camping and don’t want to bring extra pans. Wrap orange in foil and through in fire. Apparently the boy scouts have done this.

Also, for those of you who have been following my previous posts you would be proud to know that I followed the recipe exactly. Then I tried brown sugar instead of white (as you see written above). I also adjusted the orange flavor as baking in the orange itself provides plenty of orange scent so I decreased the zest. Next I want to try the recipe again using sour cream or buttermilk for added moistness and flavor.

And of course who could forget Bouchee. Without her our kitchen floors would not be so shiny.