This cranberry banana muffins recipe is quick & easy. It creates a delicious muffin that combines sweet ripe bananas with slightly tart cranberries. It is also far cheaper to make your own delectable muffins than buy expensive days old muffins from a store.
You can also turn these cranberry banana muffins into an entertaining (if slightly messy) family project where your children help you to make the banana bread batter and pour/scoop the batter into the muffin trays. Your kids will love making & EATING these tasty muffins!
Delicious Cranberry Banana Muffins
FYI – This is the “muffin version” of our great tasting Cranberry Banana Bread. It is simple & easy to make. This recipe should take you only 10-15 minutes or so to prepare and clean up. Please be aware that this is an oven-baked recipe. It is not made with a bread machine. You will also find a printable and “pin-able” recipe at the bottom of this page.
Ingredients – Cranberry Banana Muffins Recipe
- 8 Tablespoons – Unsalted Butter (softened) – 8 tablespoons equals 1/2 Cup – 115 grams
- 2 – Large Eggs
- 3 – Bananas (ripe & large sized) – 345 grams – Roughly 1 1/2 cups of mashed bananas
- 2 Cups – Flour (all purpose flour) – 240 grams
- 1 Cup – Granulated White Sugar – 200 grams – Use 1/2 cup of sugar if you want a lower sugar version & you are using very ripe bananas
- 1 Teaspoon – Vanilla Extract – 5 milliliters
- 1 Teaspoon – Baking Soda – 5 milliliters
- 1 Teaspoon – Baking Powder (aluminum free) – 5 milliliters
- 1/2 Teaspoon – Salt – 2.5 milliliters
- 1 1/2 Cups – Cranberries (fresh or frozen) – 150 grams – Not dried cranberries
Servings – Roughly 18-24 standard muffins (non-jumbo muffins)
Equipment – Measuring cup & spoons, mixing bowl, long wooden spoon, muffin trays, paper muffin liners (baking cups), oven mitts, cooling racks… and of course, an oven.
** Subscribe to Bread Dad’s free recipe newsletter **
Pour/Scoop Batter into Muffin Cups & Bake
Instructions – Cranberry Banana Muffins Recipe
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Mash bananas with a fork.
- Soften butter in a microwave.
- Lightly beat eggs.
- Stir eggs, bananas and butter together.
- Mix in remaining ingredients (except the cranberries). Stir until batter is completely mixed.
- Add the cranberries to the batter. Stir in the cranberries until fully mixed into batter.
- Place paper muffin baking cups (liners) inside the muffin trays. Or grease the muffin trays if you are not using muffin baking cups or non-stick muffin trays.
- Add the batter to the muffin baking cups until each one is about 50-75% full with batter.
- Place muffin trays into the oven.
- Bake muffins for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove the muffin trays from the oven. Use oven mitts when removing the muffin trays.
- Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes within the muffin trays.
- Remove the muffins and place them on a cooling rack in order to completely cool.
- Read the tips section below for additional information on how to make these muffins successfully.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below & give us a 5 star rating. It is ALWAYS great to hear from someone who has enjoyed our recipes!! Jump to comment section
Other Bread Dad Sections
- Bread Machines – My favorites
- Bread & Baking Tools
- Bread & Dessert Mixes
- Ingredients – Flour, sugar, etc.
- Other – Cookbooks, gluten free, etc.
Tips – Cranberry Banana Bread Muffins Recipe
- The tips below are designed to help muffin “novices” and/or people with limited baking experience.
- Click on our “print recipe” link if you want to print out this recipe. It includes all of the recipe’s ingredients and instructions. However, the recipe print function does not include our tips section. Please read the tips section in order to avoid common recipe problems.
- This recipe is part of our series on easy Banana Bread Recipes & related variations.
- You can use fresh or frozen cranberries to make these cranberry muffins. Depending on the season, fresh cranberries can be hard to find. Therefore, I often like to use frozen cranberries because they are usually more available in the supermarket. They also can sit in your freezer for a long time until you are ready to make some new cranberry muffins or cranberry banana bread. Just make sure to remove any ice crystals attached to the frozen cranberries or you could be adding too much moisture to this recipe. Just wash & DRY the frozen cranberries if you need to remove lots of ice crystals.
- This recipe does NOT use dried cranberries.
- If you have any cranberry muffin cups with too much batter and too few berries, you can push a few extra berries into the batter within the cups.
- FYI – Cranberry banana muffins are great as Thanksgiving desserts or Thanksgiving snacks!
- Creating cranberry banana bread muffins is a great way to convert “boring” banana bread into a fun & tasty project for kids. For example, you can let them “help” you by pouring/scooping the batter into the muffin trays.
- Use RIPE bananas for improved taste. Ripe bananas are soft and the exterior peel is usually yellow with small black & brown spots. Hard yellow/green(ish) bananas are too starchy and have less banana flavor
- Make sure to use 3 large bananas (not 3 medium bananas). Otherwise, the muffins might turn out to be a little dry.
- In case, you like to use cups versus banana “sizes”… 3 large-sized bananas equal roughly 1 1/3 to 1 2/3 cups of mashed bananas (not sliced bananas). Of course, banana sizes can vary greatly… so stick to measured cups of mashed bananas for the best results.
- For the most accurate results, use exactly 1 1/2 cups of mashed bananas. This lowers the chances of too much or too little moisture being added to the batter.
- There are a variety of ways to pour the batter into the muffin tray. For example, you can scoop with a spoon (while using another spoon to scrape off the batter into the muffin tray), use a small cup and spoon, use an ice cream scoop with a trigger release, use a homemade “pastry bag” to squeeze the batter into the muffin liners, etc.
- Optional – If you want to eliminate the butter used in this recipe (i.e. to reduce the saturated fat in your diet), you can replace the 8 tablespoons of butter with 1/2 cup of yogurt. 8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup. Our thanks to Kim for this great suggestion. For more details on butter substitutes, you might like to read the Bob’s Red Mill article “What Is a Good Substitute for Butter?“.
- Optional – If you want to eliminate the butter from this recipe, you can also replace the butter with a similar amount of vegetable oil. I suggest that you use a neutral flavored oil (i.e. canola oil, corn oil, etc.) because stronger tasting oils (i.e. peanut oil) can overwhelm the banana flavor.
- Optional – If you want to make a lower sugar version of this recipe, you can use 1/2 cup of sugar (versus the 1 cup of sugar called for in the recipe). I prefer the 1 cup version but some people like less sweet muffins and/or they are trying to reduce the sugar in their diet. Moreover, given differences in the level of banana “ripeness” (and related sweetness), the sweetness level can vary somewhat in these muffins (i.e. super ripe bananas add a lot of sweetness). Thanks Lora for the lower sugar idea! FYI – If you are using unripe bananas, the lower sugar version will taste very bland.
- Use paper baking cups (liners) if you want to easily extract the cranberry muffins from the muffin tray. Paper baking cups also result in less mess on your fingers when removing the muffins.
- For larger muffins, you can buy trays designed for “jumbo” muffins (versus trays for standard sized muffins). This recipe should generate roughly 8-12 jumbo banana bread muffins. However, the baking time will be a little longer versus regular muffin trays.
- If your family loves cranberry-based desserts & snacks, you should also try our recipes for Applesauce Cranberry Bread, Cranberry Bread (with Dried Cranberries), Cranberry Bread (with Fresh Cranberries) and Pumpkin Cranberry Bread.
- If you have a problem with a recipe, please make sure that you are following the recipe exactly (i.e. using the correct oven temperature), using the correct amounts of ingredients (i.e. don’t eyeball the measurements versus using a measuring cup or accidentally add a tablespoon when a teaspoon is called for), using the correct ingredients (i.e. baking soda/powder versus yeast or all purpose flour versus bread flour), etc. Please don’t “wing” things with recipes.
- In addition, you should always try to use relatively FRESH baking soda & powder for the best results. For example, using baking soda from an open container (that has been deodorizing your refrigerator for months) may lead to subpar results. Old & hard baking soda/powder may lead to rising problems and/or leave small bitter clumps in your cranberry banana bread muffins.
- My recipes are based on US ingredient measurements (i.e. US cups & tablespoons). However, as a courtesy to our European visitors, I have also included some very ROUGH European equivalents (i.e. grams & milliliters). Since I rarely use European measurements when baking, please let me know in the comment section below if any of the European ingredient measurements need to be changed (i.e. for XYZ ingredient, milliliters are more commonly used versus the grams information listed in the recipe).
- Always wear oven mitts when dealing with hot ovens, muffin pans, etc.
- For more easy banana bread muffin recipes, please visit Bread Dad’s main section on Muffin Recipes. Or for tons of easy banana breads (i.e. banana nut bread, 2 banana bread, cranberry banana bread, etc), please visit the main Banana Bread Recipes section.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below & give us a 5 star rating. Beginning bakers learn a lot from your comments, tips & recipe variations. Jump to comment section
Other Bread Dad Sections
- Bread Machines – My favorites
- Bread & Baking Tools
- Bread & Dessert Mixes
- Ingredients – Flour, sugar, etc.
- Other – Cookbooks, gluten free, etc.
Reference Sources
- Wikipedia, Banana Bread
- Wikipedia, Cranberry
- Wikipedia, Muffin
Cranberry Banana Muffins – Quick & Easy Recipe
This cranberry banana muffins recipe is quick & easy. It creates a delicious muffin that combines sweet ripe bananas with slightly tart cranberries. It is also far cheaper to make your own delectable muffins than buy expensive days old muffins from a store. Visit BreadDad.com for more great muffin and banana bread recipes.
Servings: 24 Muffins
Calories: 125kcal
Ingredients
- 8 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter (softened)
- 2 Eggs (large)
- 3 Bananas (ripe & large sized)
- 2 Cups Flour (all purpose flour)
- 1 Cup Granulated White Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder (aluminum free)
- 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
- 1 1/2 Cups Cranberries (fresh or frozen) – Not dried cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Mash bananas with a fork.
- Soften butter in a microwave.
- Lightly beat eggs.
- Stir eggs, bananas and butter together.
- Mix in remaining ingredients (except the cranberries). Stir until batter is completely mixed.
- Add the cranberries to the batter. Stir in the cranberries until fully mixed into batter.
- Place paper muffin baking cups (liners) inside the muffin trays. Or grease the muffin trays if you are not using muffin baking cups or non-stick muffin trays.
- Add the batter to the muffin baking cups until each one is about 50-75% full with batter.
- Place muffin trays into the oven.
- Bake muffins for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove the muffin trays from the oven. Use oven mitts when removing the muffin trays.
- Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes within the muffin trays.
- Remove the muffins and place them on a cooling rack in order to completely cool.
Notes
This is a Bread Dad recipe and may not be copied or reproduced. This recipe is copyright protected under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Legal Disclaimer
The nutritional information is provided using recipe tools such as WP Recipe Maker. These figures should only be considered as an estimate. They should not be construed as a guarantee of accuracy given visitors may use different serving sizes, ingredients, etc. See our legal disclaimer for additional nutrition disclosures.
Nutrition
Serving: 1Muffin | Calories: 125kcal | Carbohydrates: 21g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 24mg | Sodium: 118mg | Potassium: 76mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 10g | Vitamin A: 150IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 16mg | Iron: 1mg
If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below & give us a 5 star rating. Beginning bakers learn a lot from your comments, tips & recipe variations. Moreover, it is ALWAYS great to hear from someone who has enjoyed our recipes!!!
Related Recipes
- Cranberry Banana Bread
- No Butter Banana Muffins – Made with oil
- No Butter Banana Bread – Made with oil
- Pumpkin Banana Muffins
- Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
- Walnut Banana Bread Muffins
Please leave a comment & recipe rating in the comment box below. Thanks!