I have been neglecting my oven too much, simply too much that I think it is starting to protest already ! Hahaha !! If some of you might know, Chunky Cooky is my other baby. And with the exception of baking for cookies’ orders, my oven seems highly under-utilized, which is not a good thing. Coz I really ought to brush up on my baking skills and if they are neglected for too long, my series of bakes will have a high failure rate which somehow happens quite often nowdays. Sighhhhh…. I need to locate my baking fairy god-mother to be back with me and gear up the baking momentum in me somehow.
Baking requires more patience than cooking, coz you need to wait for the bread to ferment or cake to cool and blah blah blah before you can proceed to the next step. And I’ve gotten so overwhelm with work now that I can only concuss when I reach for the bed every day. And weekends have as much as possible trying to catch up on errands, household chores and preparation of simple meals only. Gosh, I think as much as the wish of many full-time working bakers or cooks, our desire to have a year or two of breaks from work and simply concentrate on our passion is strongly fuelled. Sighhhhh…. When will that day ever comes ??
If you ever patronize Chunky Cooky before, or having browse through the site, you would notice that I have a cookies flavor known as the Chocolate Hazelnut Cranberries. One of my lovely colleagues love this so much that it has become her top ordering choice for festive gifts. And while deciding on something simple to put myself back on the baking gear, I settled on these Orange Hazelnut Cranberries muffins since I have all the ingredients on hand. And so here you go !~~
Muffins with a crusty golden brown dome and fluffy interior. A pity I forgot to take a picture on the texture of the muffins, otherwise it should have been more ideal.
I do love these paper liners from Ikea that are so brilliant in colors and design. But they belonged to an old batch and the ones that are currently on sale now no longer have this design.
With these muffins, I certainly hope my baking momentum is coming back, even if it’s on a half gear ! I need more PHs and long weekends. Hahaha !!
Orange Hazelnut & Cranberries Muffins
Ingredients
- 100 g unsalted butter
- 80 g sugar
- 20 g light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
- 80 g orange juice
- 80 g cranberries
- 80 g hazelnuts halved
Flour Mixture (Combined & Sieved)
- 170 g flour
- 1/2 tsp baking power
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 30 g ground hazelnuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Prepare some muffin cases in a muffin pan.
- Beat the butter and sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and vanilla essence and mix well.
- On low speed, add in the sieved flour mixture and orange juice in alternate manner, beginning and ending with the flour, on 3 occasions. Stir in the halved hazelnuts and cranberries.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cases till 80% full. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes on 200 degrees C before lowering to 170 degrees C for the next 20 minutes till cooked.
Notes
Feel free to add some orange zest if available.
