Sourdough Cranberry Orange Muffins

Last night I had the urge to do some baking.  I had three criteria for finding a recipe...
1. It needed to be easy and fast
2. I had to use some of my sourdough starter
3. I hadn't baked anything in my Pampered Chef muffin pan yet, so I wanted to make some kind of muffins

And so I stumbled upon the idea for Cranberry Orange Muffins.  Perfect!  I had some leftover cranberries from the Cranberry&Pear Crisp I had just made and I needed to use them up anyway.  Plus, I  bought oranges at the store yesterday.  It was meant to be....

After looking at a few different recipes on Pinterest, I decided to make up my own recipe based on several ideas I had seen.  Yay for creating new recipes! :)

The recipe yielded exactly 12 muffins.  My hubby and I split one and he took the rest to work with him this morning.  Kudos to me for scoring points with his coworkers!

Here's the recipe:
1 c. flour (preferably whole wheat)
1/2 c. oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. sugar (I use evaporated cane juice - I steer clear of granulated sugar, it's really terrible for you)
Dash of cinnamon
Zest of 1 orange
1 c. sourdough starter
2 T. honey
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1/4 c. melted butter
Splash of orange juice
1/2 c. fresh cranberries

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Grease your muffin pan or use liners.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine the starter, honey, vanilla, egg, butter, and orange juice.  Stir until just combined. (The key to both muffins and cupcakes is that you don't want to do a lot of stirring.  Mix until just combined and you won't end up with tough or gloppy muffins.)
3. Add in the dry ingredients as well as the orange zest.  Stir until ingredients are combined (do not over-stir!).  Fold in the fresh cranberries.
4. Spoon the batter into the muffin pan.  Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are a nice, golden color. Transfer the muffins to a rack and let them cool.

Next time, I think I will add a bit of ground flax seed to the batter just to give us an extra boost of nutrition.  These muffins are sweet and tart, and taste delicious fresh out of the oven!!  A wonderful way to start your morning! :)