These gluten free orange cranberry muffins are quick and easy to make in just one bowl in 35 minutes. They’re made with almond flour and tapioca flour and are packed with fresh citrus, dried cranberries and a dairy-free orange icing on top. These healthy muffins are sweetened with honey, and they’re an easy-to-love breakfast on-the-go, snack or treat! They’re Paleo friendly and can easily be adapted to be Vegan friendly as well.
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What gluten free flour do you use to make these orange cranberry muffins?
For gluten free and Paleo friendly baking flours, we typically turn to Bob’s Red Mill. Their flours have been a staple in our pantry for years. You’ll see us using their flours in lots of our recipes – from sweet like these healthy muffins to savory like our creamy Tuscan chicken! We love the quality of their products from mill to table and the fact that they’re a local Oregon company!
For these easy orange cranberry muffins, we used their Almond Flour and Tapioca Flour. Both flours are certified gluten free and non-gmo as well. The Almond Flour is made from whole, blanched almonds. You want blanched almond flour rather than almond meal for this recipe. Here’s why:
- It is finer, lighter and results in a fluffier texture. They’d be more dense with almond meal.
- If you used almond meal the muffins would be more of a brown color, so aesthetically they look prettier with blanched almond flour. This is important when it comes to food photography.
Tips for making these orange cranberry muffins Vegan friendly
These muffins can easily be make Vegan friendly. Just note the color of the muffins will come out more brown than yellow. Here are some swaps you could make:
- Eggs => use 3 flax eggs
- Honey => use 1/3 cup maple syrup
- Ghee => use 1/3 cup coconut oil
Making the dairy free orange icing
You’ll want to note that we used traditional powdered cane sugar to make the orange flavored icing white for these photos. If you want to stay refined sugar free, make sure to use powdered maple sugar instead. The glaze will turn out brown, but still tastes delicious! I think I actually prefer the flavor of the glaze with the maple sugar. To make powdered maple sugar you just pulse maple sugar in a high powered blender or food processor until powdery. You could also use coconut sugar – I can never seem to get it as fine as maple sugar though.
Other gluten free and healthy muffin recipes to try
- GLUTEN FREE LEMON POPPY SEED MUFFINS
- COFFEE CAKE MUFFINS
- MORNING GLORY BREAKFAST MUFFINS
- PALEO BLUEBERRY MUFFINS
Your turn to try these gluten free orange cranberry muffins
These healthy, gluten free orange cranberry muffins are great for meal prep to have on hand for breakfast on-the-go, snacks or treats! They are quick and easy to make, made in just 35 minutes and with one bowl for less cleanup, too! Leave a comment below to let us know how it goes. Also, take a pic to share on Instagram, and tag us @realsimplegood so we can check it out! We love to see what you’re making. Make sure to give us a follow if you don’t already – let’s stay connected!
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Easy Gluten Free Orange Cranberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 2.25 cups (252 g) Bob's Red Mill almond flour
- 1/4 cup (30 g) Bob's Red Mill tapioca flour
- 1 tsp (1 tsp) paleo baking powder
- 1/4 tsp (1/4 tsp) sea salt
- 3 (3) eggs, (flax eggs for Vegan)
- 1 tbsp (1 tbsp) orange zest
- 1/3 cup (82.67 g) fresh squeezed orange juice, (about one orange)
- 1/3 cup (113 g) raw honey, melted, (maple syrup for Vegan)
- 1/3 cup (72.67 g) coconut oil, melted, (or ghee)
- 2 tsp (2 tsp) vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup (90.91 g) dried cranberries, (watch for added sugar)
Optional icing:
- 1/2 cup (118.29 g) powdered maple sugar, (Pulse maple sugar in a high powered blender or food processor until powdery. Coconut sugar works or regular powdered sugar.)
- 1 tbsp (1 tbsp) orange juice, (or non-dairy milk and add a drop of therapeutic grade orange essential oil)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit and line a muffin pan with parchment liners.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk almond flour, tapioca flour, baking powder and sea salt. Make sure there are no clumps. Make a hole in the center of the flour mixture.
- Add eggs, honey, orange zest and juice, coconut oil and vanilla extract to the hole. Whisk and then combine the wet and dry ingredients until smooth, and fold in dried cranberries.
- Scoop mixture into lined muffin tin, and transfer to oven. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- While the muffins cool, make optional topping if using. Whisk powdered maple sugar and orange juice in a small bowl.
- Once muffins have cooled, drizzle with topping and serve. Enjoy. Store in an airtight container on the counter or in the fridge to keep longer.
They sound delicious! Do you think fresh cranberries could be used instead of dried ones so there would be less sugar content? Thank you
I haven’t tried it with fresh cranberries, but I do think they would be too tart. I’m also not sure what they’d be like baked into the muffins…curious if they’d get soft enough. I get apple juice sweetened cranberries instead of the regular sugar sweetened ones to have a little less sugar content. Hope that helps! Happy holidays!
I am allergic to almonds. Do you have any muffin recipe that use a different flour?
Or can I substitute almond flour with some other type of flour?
Thank you
Lidia
Hi there, I haven’t played much with making these muffins with an alternate flour. We do have a couple of other muffin recipes though that use cassava flour, which is a great nut free option. Take a look at our Morning Glory Muffins and our Coffee Cake Muffins. Hope that helps! 🙂
Could I just use 2.5 cups 1for1 gluten free flour blend?
I haven’t tested it out, so I can’t say for sure. Unfortunately, the 1:1 mixes all have potato starch in them, which I can’t have so I don’t have experience baking with them. If you give it a try, report back and let us know how it went. I’m sure someone else might be interested to know the answer as well.
What does the tapioca flour do? Can I substitute coconut flour or omit it? I don’t have any on hand and would have to drive an hour to buy some.
The tapioca flour helps with the consistency. Unfortunately, coconut flour is not a good substitute because it absorbs liquid very differently. I think oat flour would be an ok sub if you can do oats and have that on hand (or could make it by turning oats into flour with a food processor). Similarly, I don’t think omitting would yield the right consistency and texture. Hope that helps.
Hello
What is 2.25 cups?
It’s 2 cups + 1/4 cup = 2.25 cups.
Thanks!
That gluten free orange cranberry muffin is so delicious. It was easy to make and my husband and I just truly loved it!
We’re so happy to hear that! Thanks for giving it a try! 🙂