These cranberry lemon muffins have a moist and tender crumb from the sour cream in the batter, and they get an extra hit of lemon flavour from the easy lemon glaze drizzled on top after baking.
Cranberries go well with citrus fruit, especially in orange-flavoured and lemon-flavoured baked goods. This moist orange cranberry bundt cake is the inspiration for these lemon muffins with cranberries folded into the batter before baking.
For this muffin recipe, we are using the reverse creaming method, which is a popular mixing method in baking to make moist cakes and muffins.
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What you need to make lemon muffins
The beauty of muffin recipes is that they require just a few ingredients and you probably have most on hand. Here's what you need to make these cranberry lemon muffins:
- Flour—all-purpose is ideal, or you can try a mixture of whole wheat and all-purpose, but this will affect the texture a little.
- Sugar—granulated sugar preferably because the flavour of brown sugar will interfere with the delicate taste of lemon in these muffins
- Leavening agents—specifically both chemical leaveners, baking powder and baking soda
- Salt—fine kosher salt like Diamond Crystal is what I use. If you use a different salt that has more or less sodium per gram, you will likely have to adjust the quantities so the muffins aren't overly salty or under-salted
- Butter—either salted or unsalted will work, though if your salted butter has a lot of salt in it, you may have to adjust the salt in the recipe
- Eggs—use large eggs preferably because smaller eggs may lead to dryer muffins
- Sour cream, preferably full-fat (14 % fat) otherwise the muffins may be dry
- Vanilla extract to enhance the sweetness and the flavour of the muffins
- Lemon juice and lemon zest to add as much lemon flavour as possible
- Cranberries—fresh or frozen will work here. If using frozen, incorporate them into the batter when still frozen. Dried cranberries also work!
- Icing sugar—to make the glaze
See recipe card for quantities.
Tip: read about baking soda versus baking powder if you aren't sure what the difference is between them!
Substitutions and variations
- Cranberries—fresh or frozen will work here. If using frozen, incorporate them into the batter when still frozen. Dried cranberries also work!
- Sour cream—full-fat greek yogurt can also work in this recipe
- Chocolate—add white chocolate chips or chopped white chocolate to the muffin batter
Key steps to make cranberry lemon muffins
The zest is combined with the sugar.
Rub the zest into the sugar to draw out the lemon oil and other flavour compounds. This is the secret to making flavourful lemon baked goods!
For the reverse creaming method, the dry ingredients, sugar and butter are worked together to form a coarse crumbly mixture.
The mixture of liquids are added to the bowl of dry ingredients.
The wet and dry ingredients are combined with a wooden spoon.
The batter will be quite thick!
Add fresh or frozen cranberries to the lemon muffin batter.
Stir them in with a wooden spoon, just until they are evenly dispersed.
Pans, muffin liners, and special tools
I baked these muffins in two 6-cup muffin pans. You can also use one 12-cup pan if you have it! Makes it faster and easier to get all the muffins in and out of the oven at once.
For this recipe, regular paper liners work great (same as for cupcakes), or you can also opt to use silicone liners. I don't recommend parchment liners because the muffins won't stick to the parchment liners, which will fall right off.
If you would prefer to bake without any liners, I recommend using cooking spray to grease the wells of your muffin pans.
For scooping the muffin batter, I recommend using two spoons or a large disher.
Adding lemon flavour to muffins with a glaze
A great way to add lemon flavour to a lemon muffin or cake is to glaze it after baking. Even a simple powdered sugar glaze made from lemon juice can have a huge impact on the flavour of the muffin, bringing that acidity that the lemon zest lacks. This works especially well on muffin tops. Of course, the unglazed stump won't have that lemony hit, but the glaze still helps bring out the flavour.
You can also brush the surface of cakes with a lemon simple syrup, which again, will help bring some of that acidity to a layer cake.
This muffin recipe makes a thick batter, which helps contribute to the dome of the muffin top, which rises up instead of spreading out as they bake. That's how you make the best muffins!
Storage
You can store these moist lemon muffins for 3–4 days in an airtight container, but I prefer to freeze them.
Remember to fully cool the muffins to room temperature (for 3–4 hours) before transferring them to an airtight container or freezer bag for long-term storage (1–2 months). Freeze the muffins before glazing for the best results. Then ice them before serving.
How to defrost muffins
If you want to defrost frozen muffins, you have a few options depending on how much time you have:
- longest method—in the fridge overnight, unwrapped to avoid moisture buildup on the surface of the muffin tops
- at room temperature, unwrapped to avoid moisture buildup on the surface of the muffin tops—this will take a few hours
- fastest method—in the microwave oven: place the unwrapped muffin on a napkin or a microwave-safe plate. Microwave on HIGH for about 30 seconds for each muffin. The time and results will vary according to the power of your microwave.
Serving suggestions
Serve these glazed lemon muffins plain or you can also make some homemade lemon curd to enjoy with them!
Other muffin recipes to try
If you like to bake muffins on Sunday to have during the week, here are some other muffin recipes to try:
Frequently asked questions
With the two-bowl mixing method, you do not need a mixer or any special equipment. All you need is two bowls, a whisk, a spoon, and of course, muffin pans. The dry ingredients are whisked together in one bowl and then the soft butter is worked into it. And the wet ingredients are combined in a separate bowl before mixing everything together. It's really easy!
It's very difficult to infuse lemon flavour into baked goods and there's a limit to how much flavour you can get into a muffin. Your best bet to make lemon muffins more flavourful is to use the zest in the batter and the juice in a glaze.
If you want to freeze these cranberry lemon muffins, I suggest freezing the cooled muffins without the glaze, then you can glaze them when you defrost them.
You could add a little more sour cream to the recipe, resulting in a slightly looser batter, but then the muffins will spread out more and you will lose the dome, which will be flatter. Increase the sour cream to 170 mL (⅔ cup) instead of 125 mL (½ cup) and also add a little more sugar, using 250 grams (1-¼ cups) instead of 200 grams (1 cup) will make a more cakey muffin that is very moist.
📖 Recipe
Cranberry lemon muffins
Ingredients
For the muffin batter
- 200 grams (1 cup) granulated sugar
- 30 mL (2 tablespoon) finely grated lemon zest
- 250 grams (2 cups) bleached all-purpose flour
- 2.5 mL (½ teaspoon) baking soda
- 2.5 mL (½ teaspoon) baking powder
- 2.5 mL (½ teaspoon) Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
- 115 grams (½ cup) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into small pieces
- 125 mL (½ cup) sour cream (14% fat)
- 30 mL (2 tablespoon) fresh lemon juice
- 2 large egg(s)
- 5 mL (1 teaspoon) pure vanilla extract
- 100 grams (1 cup) fresh cranberries, or frozen
For the lemon glaze
- 125 grams (1 cup) icing sugar
- 30 mL (2 tablespoon) fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 °F. Line two muffin pans with 10 muffin paper liners being sure to space them out between the two pans to allow better air flow.
Make the muffin batter
- In a large bowl, combine the granulated sugar and lemon zest. Using your fingertips, rub the ingredients together. This will help bring out the oils in the zest, adding more flavour.
- Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Add the cubes of softened butter and work it in with your hands, rubbing it in until the mixture resembles coarse sand.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice, eggs, and vanilla.
- Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir it in (takes about 20 stirs to get the batter mixed).
- Fold the cranberries into the batter gently with a wooden spoon or spatula to evenly distribute them.
- Divide the batter between 10 paper-lined wells of two muffin pans.
- Bake at 425°F for 8 minutes, then drop the temperature to 350 ºF and continue baking until a cake tester inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean to check if the muffins are baked. This takes about 15 minutes more and the edges start to turn golden.
- Let cool slightly in the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the glaze
- Whisk together the ingredients of the glaze and drizzle the tops of the muffins with it. The glaze should be very thick so that it doesn't all run off. Make sure the muffins have cooled down fully before glazing or the heat will cause the glaze to run off.
Mary Pietan says
Are you saying that the recipe for cranberry lemon muffins makes a total of 10 muffins? But you spread them between two muffin pans before you bake them?
Janice says
Hi Mary,
Yes, I split the batter between two muffin pans and it only makes 10 muffins. My pans only have 6 wells each, which is why I need two pans. But if your pan has 12 wells, you'd only need one pan! Hope that makes more sense!