Fresh Cranberry Almond Muffins

I haven’t made this Warm Spiced Almond beverage in years but the weather is getting colder and due to the pandemic our Girls’ Night In evenings are happening outdoors so I wanted to offer something warm to my guests. I am going to change up the preparation of that recipe because I did the almond milk differently, but in any case I ended up with leftover almond pulp that I didn’t want to waste but also didn’t want to bother drying out to use later. My eldest has been talking about making a cranberry almond tart she’d see in Cook’s Illustrated and I had some cranberries I got from the farmers’ market so it seemed like I must be able to figure out some way of putting the fresh cranberries and the almond pulp together.

I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for on the Internet so decided to use my own Fruity Muffin recipe as a baseline. I figured I’d need to make some modifications because the almond pulp was still quite moist even after I got all the almond milk out of it I could. I was concerned they’d be too tart but they seem great and the texture is quite nice. A good little muffin and the recipe made 18 so I’ve got a bunch for the freezer, as well. Score!

I made a second batch for a gathering we’re going to have where one of the guests eats dairy-free. Instead of the yogurt, I used 1 cup of the almond milk I’d made soured with 1 TBSP lemon juice and made the rest of the recipe as written. In this case I simply left the crumble topping off of a few muffins, but it would be very easy to use a butter substitute in the topping recipe and be able to use that. Or just mix some oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and a little oil as a quick topping. The dairy-free version is indistinguishable from the one with yogurt. You could probably veganize it by using flax eggs (1TBSP ground flax seed to 3 TBSP water per egg) and if you also wanted to make it gluten-free I am pretty certain an easy switch could be made using any 1:1 gluten-free flour mix of your choice.

INGREDIENTS

8 oz whole wheat pastry flour

Pulp from a batch of almond milk that started with 1 1/2 c whole raw almonds (unsoaked)

Generous 1/2 c. evaporated cane juice sugar

Heaping 1/2 tsp salt

Heaping 1/2 tsp baking soda

Heaping 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 c. plain yogurt or 1 c. almond milk soured with 1 TBSP lemon juice

1/4 c. vegetable oil, coconut oil or melted butter slightly cooled 

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 1/2 to 2 c. fresh or frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped (I used my mini chopper)

Approx 18 TBSP crumble topping (I use 1 TBSP per muffin but you could use as little as 1/2 TBSP)

I didn’t have fresh almond pulp but wanted to make the recipe anyway so I used 6oz of a combination of almond meal, blanched almond flour and flax seed and that seemed to work really well.

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare two 12-cup muffin tin by lining or spraying with oil but you probably will only need 18 slots (if you have a 6-cup muffin tin you can use that with the 12)
2. Combine dry ingredients except crumble/granola in a large bowl
3. Combine wet ingredients except fruit in a medium bowl or measuring cup, whisking to blend
4. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just moistened
5. Fold in cranberries then divide batter among the muffin cups. I fill them pretty full using my ice cream scoop for even portions
6. Sprinkle crumble/granola equally over the muffins
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and a toothpick or skewer comes out clean