Finally I bake something and don't completely screw it up. And I only had to make one frantic phone call to my mother.
This was my week to bring for my office's Friday morning Breakfast Club. I signed up to be in the "club" just so I'd have an excuse to bake something new and share it. Then how come for the last two or three rotations, I have bought muffins at the store to bring? Like all good things, it starts out with coffee cake and banana bread and ends up with Winchell's doughnuts.
Getting into the season, I dedided on cranberry-orange muffins (inspiration thanks to
Jess). Except that I didn't have any oranges, just tangerines. Details, details.
The recipe also required chopping the cranberries. What are these people trying to do? Impale me? The cranberries were rolling all over the place. I found them on the floor, in the egg carten, in the drawer for utensils.
But look how pretty and festive they are:
Here's a confession that will likely suprise no one: This is what my kitchen looks like after I try baking something. Megan had
just washed a bunch of dishes and cleaned off the counter maybe 15 minutes before I came and destroyed it again. Also note the aluminum muffin trays in the background. Good for two reasons: 1.) they're cheap, 2.) they're all I could find at the grocery store. I hope they're not one-time-use, because I will be using them until they melt.
Cranberry-Tangerine Muffins:
1 3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
grated peel from 1 orange (tangerine)
1 cup coarsely chopped cranberries
Line tray with paper muffin cups. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
In a medium mixing bowl combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Make a well in the center of the mixture.
In another mixing bowl, combine egg, milk, oil and peel (for more orangey flavor, replace milk with orange juice). Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture. Stir just until moistened. Add cranberries. Batter should be a bit lumpy.
Spoon batter into cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for 20 minutes until golden. Makes 12 muffins.
If you haven't noticed, I go in kicks. First there were tomatoes, then mushrooms, squash and now cranberries. I get excited (obsessed) about an ingredient and I go crazy. (Plus, I need to finish off the leftovers). So here's another variation on orange (tangerine) and cranberries.
It's rather unfortunate I chose to make this week cranberry-orange week as I have an e-freaking-normous canker sore in the back of my mouth (a result of biting my cheek not herpes simplex one, you high schoolers!). The sore is so swollen that every time I swallow I bite it, and I am in serious danger of overdosing and injesting enough oral benzocaine to warrant a call to poison control. Megan informed me last night that orange juice, tomatoes and the like (i.e. anything acidic) are bad. I'm just praying that it will heal enough for me to be able to sleep on the left side of my face and to enjoy tomorrow's feast.
On a tip from Sugar Punk (where I got this recipe) and Better Homes and Gardens, it's not necessary or adviseable to mix the batter to a smooth consistency. As you can see in the above photo, not quite all the flour has been mixed. It supposedly makes the bread lighter in the end. True, I did find this bread to be lighter than the tangerine-orange muffins, which I probably over-mixed. Plus, it's less work. We all win here.
Cranberry-Orange Loaf:
2 cups flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter, softened
peel from one orange (tangerine in this case)
3/4 cup orange juice (props to me for using juice from the tangerine)
1 egg
1 cup chopped cranberries
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Add butter and mix until crumbly. Add the peel, juice, egg and cranberries. Stir until moistened. Pour batter into an 8" by 4" pan. Bake for 75 minutes at 350 degrees. 
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