Egg-less, Butter-less, Cranberry Muffins

It’s time to empty the fridge. It’s time to pack the sacks. These kept us busy the whole of last days. Picking, throwing, cleaning. Packing, planning, setting aside. Packing, wrapping, asking friends if they need that blue ceramic, that coffee machine, extra unused spices, the new crockery set right inside the package. And much much more. Should go unsaid those pangs of breathlessness, those hard lumps in the throat to leave behind favorite pieces, collectibles, moments that would never return.

But there’s excitement at a new beginning. There’s thrill to ponder on the shape this space will take in a new ambience. I am already planning the new avatar. And that’s the essence of today – Shubho Noboborsho – wishes for the ’Bengali’ New Year (along with the beginning of a new year in several other countries and cultures).

It’s absolute fun to see Lill Bay Leaf enjoying the move. Without any practical realisation. Our bed goes, and the empty space gives her more options to explore new dance steps. Overjoyed, she jumps around trying to embrace the gap in her arms.


Being able to watch her is a blessing. And an inspiration. And a source of motivation, energy. We go forward. We keep moving.

And trying new ideas.

The bowels of my freezer turned up antic pieces. A forgotten cake layer, packets of frozen blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, and rasp berries, homemade pizza dough and sauce, three types of store-bought ice cream plus David Lebovitz’s ginger as well as roasted banana ice creams, a packet of filo dough, wonton wrappers, peeled jumbo shrimps, and not to speak of the endless stock of meat and vegetables, and more, and cranberries. And the ice. This after 2 weeks of stop-shopping-and-piling and empty-the-pantry-and-freezer drive. This was high time I looked at my storage and planned how to use the contents and avoid wastage.

So, where to begin? Looking at the diverse items, and mind maping the finished products, (shrimps for a cocktail or coconut curry, berries for cake fillings, strawberries for dumplings, filo for baklava) I came at the odd one - Cranberries? Fresh cranberries stored in the freezer for a longer shelf life.

Can’t say about your world, but this place where we survived four years is not an absolute heaven for many fresh fruits, berries, or vegetables. Many food items come imported from elsewhere, several are available frozen, and only a few are grown in this cold land of two winters (a green and a white, says every typical nordmann). Dried cranberries can still be found year-round but the fresh ones? Only if you have a couple of beautiful friends who are always eager to surprise you, you might have recieved a pack of fresh cranberries bought from those out-of-town superstores (since you started eating their heads off with your no-cranberry sobs).

Yes, and then the fresh become frozen (read killed) in my own freezer to allow respite from the sheer excitement of laying my hands on them. Two months later I pull them out and wonder how to savour these. Tart, salad, scones, cake, cake fillings? Once more Chocolate & Baking comes to my rescue as I looked through its index and found the only cranberry recipe in all of the dozen cookbooks I own. And what better way to use my new, sexy muffin tray, complete with a lockable and carry-able lid, that I recieved the day before?

Cranberry Muffins – Makes 18 medium or 24 smaller ones

~~Loosely adapted from Chocolate & Baking

~ Plain/All-purpose flour – 2 cups/225 g
~ Baking powder – 2 teaspoon
~ Salt – ½ teaspoon
~ Caster sugar – 18 teaspoon or 100 g
~ Eggs - 2
~ Milk – ¾ cup
~ Buttermilk/Yoghurt/Sour cream – 1 ½ cup
~ Fresh cranberries – 100 g

Topping

~ Brown sugar – 2 teaspoons
~ Coffee powder – 1 teaspoon
~ Cinnamon powder – ½ teaspoon

I must warn beforehand my rendition of this recipe suffered terribly in my hands. First, I doubled the recipe since we were celebrating and needed to bake for friends as well. Then, I absolutely dumped the butter (the original recipe for 18 muffins suggested 50 g or 10 teaspoon melted butter) and added 1 ½ cup buttermilk to replace it. Naturally, I didn’t add the milk. Next, I wanted to serve these as aftermeal-goodies so needed to make them sweeter. And also to control the tanginess of the buttermilk, I upped the sugar to double.

One would have still ignored this revolution, but finally I decided I want Lill Bay Leaf to taste these and whoosh go the eggs. I replaced them with the store-bought 'No Egg', which is mainly tapioca flour, a wonderful substitute for eggs. And still this all-forgiving recipe turned out just fine, in fact quite fine, the proof being 36 medium sized muffins lapped up by five adults between an evening and the next afternoon.

1. Grease the muffin tray and switch on your oven to 200 C or 400 F.

2. Sieve the flour and baking powder, stir in the salt and sugar.

3. In a separate bowl, mix thoroughly the (butter and eggs, if using) buttermilk and egg substitute, milk if using, and slowly add the dry ingredients in small bathches. Mix lightly together until all the ingredients are well incorporated. The batter would be thick and viscous but pourable. If it is too doughy-thick, add some more buttermilk or milk to loosen up.

4. Stir in the fresh cranberries. A lesson learned – next time, I would slice the berries in halves before adding. Smaller bites of tartness would be appreciated by many as also the juice will add some color to the batter.

5. Spoon in the batter in the prepared muffin tray. In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar, coffee powder, and cinnamon powder and sprinkle this brown mixture on each muffin cup. I used extra cranberries to adorn the tops but next time, I would use the berries from the stipulated 100 grams. Also, you can roll the cranberries in this brown mixture before placing on the top, which I did for the last batch, with great results.

6. Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted at the center of the muffins comes out clean.

7. Leave the muffins to cool in their pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

The original recipe would yield 18 muffins but I doubled it. The recipe above, however, states the ratios for 18 medium sized muffins. You can probably make 24 smaller ones or double the recipe if needed, without hassle.


The original recipe was less sweet (tad on the savoury side) with a light topping of parmesan cheese, which I absolutely replaced with the sugar-cinnamon-coffee mixture. So for a variation, you can absolutely halve the sugar quantity and use the parmesan cheese topping and let me know how it works.

Also note, as much as I rave about cranberries, it is absolutely alright if you don’t like their tartness. Feel free to replace cranberries with any other small, pitless fruits; raisins, even grapes will work great, I suppose, but need a trial before recommendation. Also, a favorable realisation is probably that cranberries taste better after they are baked. Naturally, their tartness will be much tolerable once the muffins are out of the oven.

Finally, the muffins were good, with wonderful texture and looks, but a little elastic, which was fun as well, probably because of the thick floury dough. I need to work on this in future but would appreciate feedback on how it turns out with the eggs instead of egg substitutes. Happy munching.