Cranberry Eggnog Streusel Muffins

🍯 Why This Recipe Works

1. Simple ingredients. Most of the ingredients in this recipe are simple pantry staple ingredients like flour, sugar, and baking powder. That means any shopping that you'll need to do will be minimal.
2. We use real eggnog! While we do use some rum extract for added flavor, we need actual eggnog in the muffin batter. This is great for using up leftover eggnog in the fridge.
3. You can omit the cranberries. Adding the cranberries really makes these muffins fun, festive, and colorful, but you can omit them if you want. The muffins still taste great without them.

🥘 Ingredients

Ingredient Notes:

Streusel Topping- For a delicious topping, combine granulated sugar, flour, nutmeg, rum extract, and butter.

Granulated Sugar- This will make the muffins sweeter, but it also helps to give us a more tender crumb as well.

Baking Powder- You will need some baking powder to help the muffins rise as they bake.

Eggnog- To moisten the batter and give us a "real" eggnog flavor, you'll need some actual eggnog.

Fresh Cranberries- Add in fresh cranberries for a burst of fresh tangy goodness in every muffin.

For specific ingredients and measurements, please see the recipe card below.

🔪 Instructions

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F, line a muffin tray with paper liners, or spray with cooking grease.

Step 2: In a bowl, combine all of the dry topping ingredients until well mixed. Add in the melted butter and mix just until crumbly. Set aside.

Step 3: In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until smooth.

Step 4: Mix in the eggs until smooth.

It should look like this.

Step 5: Mix in the baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and rum extract.

Step 6: Add in the flour and the eggnog, alternatingly, until both have been combined.

Start and end with the flour.

Step 7: Fold in the halved frozen fresh cranberries.

Step 8: Stop once fully incorporated.

Step 9: Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Add streusel, you will have some leftovers.

Step 10: Bake in the oven at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes until light golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool.

🍴 Recipe Tips

Making the cranberry muffins with fresh cranberries is great. But if possible, freeze them beforehand.

Freeze your cranberries at least an hour before making these muffins so that they're easier to slice in half, and don't leave red streaks throughout the batter as you fold them in.

If you want to leave out the rum extract, just use double the amount of vanilla extract in its place. So instead of ¼ teaspoon of rum extract, you'd use ½ teaspoon, etc. Just note that the rum flavoring really helps to drive the eggnog flavor home, and they may not taste as strong.

If you don't have enough eggnog, you can fill in the remaining amount using half and half or milk. The flavor will be weakened, but they should still taste good.