Delicious and easy to make Christmas muffins
These super simple Christmas muffins are filled with all things Christmas. Little bits of marzipan, raisins (or cranberries), nuts and all the delicious spices you associate with the festive season.
Christmas muffins
If you’ve followed me for a while you probably know that I love to bake some Christmas things around this time of year. Initially I planned on making another bundt cake, but figured it would be easier if I made them into muffins. They’re portable and can be frozen if you want to keep them for longer. They are absolutely perfect for the holiday season. You can serve them as a snack or for Christmas morning breakfast or simply with a cup of hot chocolate.
What goes into the muffins?
First of all these are baked with regular all purpose flour and almond flour. I love the combination of the two. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature The main ingredients are:
- flour
- almond flour
- brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- Greek yogurt
- Marzipan
- melted unsalted butter
- raisins
- fresh cranberries
- walnuts
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
And the other usual suspects such as baking powder and spices. You could even call them gingerbread muffins if you want as they do have all those flavors but due to the added extra’s they are so much more than that. Other things you need are muffin cups, a large bowl and once cooled you need an airtight container to store them.
Making the Christmas muffins
One things that is different with muffins as compared to a regular cake batter is that you do not want to over whip the batter. You want it to just come together. Making it is pretty easy. Essentially you just add the dry ingredients together and mix them. Then you mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and you fold in the extra’s such as the fresh cranberries, the walnuts and the raisins. Make sure the melted butter is cooled down before you add it.
For the marzipan it is best to cut them into very small cubes. Then dust them with a little icing sugar and make sure to shake it around so all cubes have a little dusting of the icing sugar. That will help prevent them from sticking together inside the muffin batter.
Additionally you could add chocolate chips, other dried fruit or whatever fits the Christmas season. I’ve also made them with an easy cinnamon crumble on top. That would also work really well for these holiday muffins.
The batter itself is fairly firm so you will need to scoop it into the muffin tin. I press it down a little just to make sure it fills the cupcake liners well. Although once you place it in the oven they will melt into it without a problem.
You need a 12-cup muffin tin to place all the batter in. Once all the batter is distributed you place the muffins inside the preheated oven and bake them for about 18-20 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.
Let them cool inside the tin for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack. For baking them I like to use silicon moulds. They are super easy to get the muffins out of the muffin cases, but paper works well too. You just make sure you use a bit of vegetable oil to brush the muffin cases so they come out easily. I baked them in both paper cases and silicon cases this time.
Serving the Christmas muffins
Once they are cooled you can add some Christmas decorations if you want to. You can add cream cheese to the top and a variety of sprinkles or use candy canes. You can add butter cream or serve them warm with some ice cream or whipped cream if you like. I love mine plain or with simply a dusting of icing sugar over the muffin top.
I had some batter leftover so I added that to a star shaped Christmas baking tin I recently purchased. I could have used up all the batter in the 12 muffins but I under filled some by accident. You can keep the muffins in the airtight container for a couple of days outside of the fridge or freeze them for later.
Christmas muffins with marzipan and cranberries
Equipment
- 12 hole muffin tin
- 12 paper muffin cases or use silicon
Ingredients
- 200 gr all purpose flour
- 50 gr almond flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ginger spices
- 100 gr brown sugar
- 100 gr marzipan in small cubes
- 25 gr walnuts chopped
- 50 gr almond slivers
- 25 gr raisins
- 100 gr fresh cranberries
- 2 eggs
- 100 gr butter melted and cooled
- 225 gr Greek yogurt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 180˚C (350˚F)
- Take a large mixing bowl and add the flour, almond flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, marzipan cubes, raisins, nuts and the fresh cranberries.
- Add the wet ingredients into another bowl. First whisk the eggs with the yogurt and add the melted butter. Whisk until combined before adding the dry to the wet ingredients.
- Stir well with a spoon. You don't want to overmix the batter. It's a fairly thick batter.
- Grease the muffin cases with a bit of oil or baking spray and divide the batter over the cases with two spoons. Press into the cases if necessary.
- Place the muffin tin in the oven and bake for around 20 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack and serve with some icing sugar.
Nutrition Information per portion
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
Also check these muffins
