TART, TENDER MERGE IN MUFFIN

Use your extra cranberry sauce in a more healthful baked treat

This recipe is a scrumptious solution to a puzzle I face every year: What to do with all the leftover cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving?

One answer I have come to rely on is to freeze it in ice cube trays, then transfer the cubes to a freezer bag, so they can be thawed as needed to, say, accompany roasted chicken, spread onto sandwiches, or blitz, still frozen, with milk and a scoop of almond butter, into a frothy smoothie.

But this year, I wanted to try something different, and remembering how much I enjoy bursts of the tart berry in baked goods led me to these muffins. A full cup of cranberry sauce is stirred right into the batter, infusing them with cranberry flavor. Using sauce made from whole cranberries ensures plenty of those crimson bursts throughout as well.

True to form, this recipe is more healthful, too, without sacrificing any of the tender, cakey goodness we want from a muffin. I use whole-wheat pastry flour, which is light and mildtasting (you could substitute a mix of all-purpose and regular whole-wheat flours) along with almond flour for a boost of protein, healthy fat and subtle nutty flavor. (If you don’t have almond flour, you can simply whir blanched almonds in the food processor until they are very finely ground.)

To sweeten the muffins, I employ one of my new favorite baking ingredients, date sugar, which is essentially finely ground dried dates. It looks and tastes similar to brown sugar — which you can use instead, with modifications noted in the recipe — but you get all the minerals and antioxidants inherent in the dried fruit, plus fiber. The muffins are also made with healthful oil, rather than butter.

Spiked with warmly fragrant orange zest and cinnamon and redolent with cranberries, these muffins are an edible reminder of the pleasures of the season. If you don’t typically have cranberry sauce left from the holiday, you’re going to want to make extra just to be able to bake them.