How to make cranberry sauce muffins

Recycling should be high on everyone’s agenda, but how can it be done with surplus food? Julia Platt Leonard has the answer

Give cranberries a new lease of life

Cranberry sauce is a Christmas lunch fixture, adding a much welcome splash of colour and hit of acid to what is – aside from the sprouts – a plate of brown food.

But a little cranberry sauce goes a long way. If you find yourself with leftovers, give cranberries a new lease of life by folding them into muffin batter.

Add almonds for crunch and a sprinkle of demerara sugar on top. You can use homemade cranberry sauce or the stuff out of a jar.

If your cranberries don’t have orange in them, add some orange zest (if you’ve got one on hand).

When you take the muffins out of the oven, only let them cool in the tin for around 5 minutes or they’ll start to steam.

Then lift them out and place them on a cooling rack or better yet, don’t wait and eat them then and there. A perfect bit of food recycling.

Note: you can use plain flour instead of spelt.

Cranberry sauce muffins

Makes 12 muffins

240g white spelt flour
1½tsp baking powder
½tsp baking soda
½tsp salt
115g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1tsp almond extract
115g greek yoghurt
60ml milk
150g cranberry sauce
20g flaked almonds
2tsp demerara sugar
Zest of 1 orange (optional)

Preheat the oven to 175C​. You will need a 12-cup muffin tin, greased or lined with paper cases.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. In a second bowl, cream the butter, add the sugar, then eggs. Beat until fluffy. Stir in the almond extract and the yoghurt.

Fold in the flour in three parts – before adding in the last third, stir in the milk. Finally, add in the cranberry sauce, and the orange zest, if using.

Divide the mixture evenly between the muffin cups. Top with the almond flakes and the demerara sugar. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean.

If the almonds start to darken too much, cover the tin with a piece of aluminium foil.

Remove from the oven, allow to cool for 5 minutes then remove and place on a wire cooling rack.

@juliapleonard