Frosted Chocolate Cranberry Muffins with Grand Marnier

Muffins or cupcakes? They started out as plain muffins, until I took creative license and added cocoa, cranberries, pecans and Grand Marnier.

Coming out of the oven, these beauties cried out for more dark, creamy goodness, so I dipped them in melted chocolate and zig-zagged them with a decorating gel.

The end result was heavenly to look at and heavenly to bite into!

(The added ingredients, the ones which take them beyond the basic muffin, are in italics.)

CHOCOLATE CRANBERRY MUFFINS WITH GRAND MARNIER
(Makes 12 muffins)

Ingredients....

3/4 cup unbleached white flour
3/4 cup unbleached whole wheat flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups raw cranberries, cut in half
2/3 cups milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1-1/2 tablespoons Grand Marnier (orange-flavored cognac-based liqueur)
2/3 cup chopped nuts
1-1/2 cups dark chocolate candy wafers
3.5 ounce (99 g) tube of Wilton Sparkle Gel

Directions...

1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Mix dry ingredients.
3. Take raw cranberries out of the freezer and thaw for about five minutes before cutting in half. Stir into dry ingredients.
4. In small bowl, combine milk, oil, egg and Grand Marnier. Make a “well” in the center of the dry ingredients, add wet ingredients and stir just until mixed, no longer.
5. Gently fold in nuts.
6. Pour into prepared muffin tin (greased or oiled). Don’t use cupcake papers.
7. Bake in pre-heated oven 20 to 25 minutes.
8. When thoroughly cooled, dip top of each muffin in melted chocolate. Let set for a couple of minutes, then decorate with the Sparkle Gel.

Sometimes these ideas pop into my head in the evening when I really have a desire to cook but don’t want to heat the oven and wait for the finished product to cool. In this case, I mixed the muffin batter, greased the muffin tin and poured in the batter, covered the whole thing in plastic wrap and refrigerated it. In the morning, I took the muffin tin out of the refrigerator, uncovered it and let it sit on the counter while the oven preheated.