These cranberry gingerbread muffins are absolutely perfect for fall, comforting and warm cinnamon and gingerbread flavors complimented by tangy cranberry, making them delicious through and through.
Last week, a week to the day, I was drinking coffee and eating breakfast after having attended ChoppedCon 14. I was at breakfast with someone I had met at the conference, and although we did spend time together at the conference, we really bonded at coffee, that lovely girl is Lynn of Order In The Kitchen.
Several funny things happened at breakfast. To start, we each ordered an iced coffee and discovered that we liked topping our coffee with cinnamon. I cautiously sprinkled a few bits of cinnamon on my iced coffee and went to wait at a table. Lynn? Well, who knows what happened with the cinnamon container because all of a sudden approximately half the bottle was in her coffee. There was a thick layer. I’m still not quite sure how she drank it, but we still laugh and text (not to mention tweet, instagram, facebook and snapchat each other) funny comments about ALL THE CINNAMON.
But besides the funny cinnamon incident (I’m posting a cinnamon hot chocolate Tuesday, stay tuned!!), she had this gorgeous looking muffin for breakfast, she even posted about it here. I got a boring bagel but kept thinking about that damn muffin! So this morning, in honor of the lovely Lynn (who just so happens to be a lawyer, hence ‘order’ in the kitchen, and I keep thinking of fun L rhymes ‘love Lynn the lawyer lol’) I made these cranberry gingerbread muffins…cinnamon and all 😉
Before I show you how to make these muffins, can we talk about cranberries? I’m totally loving the beautiful color of them!
I had some frozen cranberries in my freezer, but fresh ones would work great for these as well! Making the muffins are super simple, you just mix your wet ingredients and dry ingredients separately, combine them, add the cranberries, bake, and you’ll have yourself delicious muffins!
I like to top my muffins with sanding sugar, the extra little crunch is so yummy!
Do you save the tops to eat last? I totally do 🙂

Ingredients
- 1/2 Stick Butter unsalted, melted
- 1/2 Cup Milk
- 1/4 Cup Maple Syrup
- 1 Egg
- 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 3/4 Cups Flour
- 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
- 1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 Tsp Baking soda
- 1 Tsp Cinnamon
- 1/2 Tsp Ginger
- 1/2 Tsp Salt
- 1/4 Tsp All Spice
- 1 Cup Cranberries finely chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400. Line a muffin pan with 6 large muffin liners or 9 regular size muffin liners.
- In a microwave safe bowl microwave butter for 30 seconds, then remove from microwave and add all wet ingredient (ingredients up until the flour) and whisk until combined, it's ok if there are a few lumps.
- In another bowl add all dry ingredients (minus cranberries). Add wet ingredients to dry and stir 3 times, then add the cranberries (I usually pulse them in a food processor for 4 seconds, but if you like larger pieces you can just chop them). Add the cranberries and stir until combined. Spoon into muffin liners. Bake for 22 minutes, remove from oven, allow to cool for a few minutes and then enjoy!
Malia says
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I prepared these muffins tonight and they turned out perfect! I love the combination of spicy ginger, sweet baked goods and tart cranberries. I will definitely be making these again and again.
Sweetphi says
Oh my goodness, thank you SO MUCH for your incredibly nice comment, I truly appreciate it! These muffins are one of my favorites…and the other night I found some frozen cranberries in my freezer and I can’t wait to make these this weekend! Thanks again!!
Kris says
So I was looking for a way to use up frozen cranberries and found this recipe. Normally the first time I make a recipe, I follow the instructions fairly closely. However, I started it before I realized that I had already packed my muffin tin (getting ready to move) and my husband used up the eggs. I did have flaxseed meal and a bread pan, so I did the egg substitute with the flaxseed and made a quick bread instead, sprinkling some turbinado sugar on top. It took about 10 extra minutes in the oven for my 9×5 bread pan and it is delicious. Thanks!
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much for coming back and commenting with those changes. I can totally see this being delicious as a bread…now I want to try that 🙂 Thank you again, those are super helpful adaptation notes you gave!
Laura @ Laura's Culinary Adventures says
This recipe seems so Christmas-y!
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much, these definitely are perfect for the Christmas season 🙂
Oriana | Mommyhood's Diary says
I love cranberries but I never have eaten them in combination with ginger. Sounds like a delightful combination. Pinned.
Sweetphi says
Cranberries with ginger are such a great combination, I think you’ll love them! And thank you so much for pinning, that really means a lot 🙂
housewifeintraining says
Phi, these are gorgeous!! And I loved meeting you and Lynn at ChoppedCon…finally! I just wish we all lived in KC (or closer!) so we could enjoy coffee dates, laughs and lots of cinnamon every weekend!
Sweetphi says
Haha, girl, you’re so sweet! I’m so glad I got to meet you too, and I do wish we all lived close so we could go and enjoy coffee…and cinnamon…lots and lots of cinnamon lol. Thanks for commenting!
Rachel @ Bakerita says
What beautiful muffins! I love cranberries and gingerbread and all the gorgeous fall flavors you packed in here. Pinned!
Sweetphi says
Aren’t cranberry muffins the best? Thank you so much for commenting and for pinning, truly means a lot to me!
Thalia @ butter and brioche says
I have never used cranberries in baking before! These cranberry and gingerbread muffins do look delicious Phi, I can definitely see myself making the recipe – they are so perfect for the upcoming Christmas season too!
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much Thalia, fresh cranberries are so delish in baking! And these muffins would be perfect for the Christmas season, can you believe it’s less than 2 months away?
Lynn Lovejoy from Order in the Kitchen says
OMG Phi. I can’t even with this post. I’m laughing and crying. Well basically I was crying because it was so sweet and then I burst out laughing when you told the cinnamon story. SO MUCH CINNAMON!!!! I don’t know how I drank that either honestly because there was legit like 1/2 a cup of cinnamon in it but I was having the best time at breakfast with you that I barely even noticed! I loved nothing more than getting to know you, both at coffee AND all of our chats after the conference. Can you believe we have only known each other like a WEEK? I mean that is kind of crazy to me because I feel like I’ve known you for years, and I’m so glad we can talk about things that no one else understands about us. I feel like other people probably look at our tweets and think that we are nuts, but really they are just missing out because our bond is so special I can’t even describe it adequately in words (someone (read=you) was obviously paying more attention than I was to the “art of writing” lecture at the conference lol). I like honestly don’t even know what else to say right now, and I’m a lawyer (read=I love talking) and a writer (borderline, if blogging counts). I’m just so overwhelmed and happy and missing you to pieces right now. Also, these muffins look freaking out of this world. Like amazing. They look a thousand times better than the one I had at Latte Land (which was pretty good!) The styling of the photo, the composition, the lighting…everything is On.Point. I’m loving all of this. The best part of Latte Land wasn’t the cranberry muffin OR the cinnamon with coffee (it certainly isn’t the other way around!). The best part of Latte Land was getting to know you. Laughing and sharing our stories and secrets. Just the most amazing time and I can’t wait until we get to see each other again!! Hopefully soon in Chi-Town! Love you girl!!
Sweetphi says
This is like the best comment ever, THANK YOU!! I’m now tearing up just reading it again and then your kind words…girl, all the cinnamon was totally worth it and has inspired so many recipes! I can’t wait to see you again…until then, I’ll continue to blow up your phone, and hopefully get my autocorrect fixed stat lol!
Jennifer Shafer says
HI – I love the idea of this recipe! Can it be made into a loaf instead of muffins?
Sweetphi says
What a great idea! I’ve never tried this as a loaf but I think it would totally work – just would need to bake a little longer. Let me know how it turns out for you if you try it as a loaf!