Spiced Cranberry Muffins with Frosted Cranberries

With muffins it’s always a good idea to have everything weighed out and ready before you start.

Begin by sifting the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder and salt into a bowl, lifting the sieve up high to give the flour a good airing. Now, in another bowl whisk together the orange juice and zest, egg, sugar, milk and melted butter. Now return the dry ingredients to the sieve and sift them straight into the egg mixture. (This double sifting is crucial because we won’t be doing much mixing.)

What you now need to do is take a large metal spoon to fold the dry ingredients quickly into the wet ones – the key word here is quickly (i.e. in about 15 seconds). What you mustn’t do is beat or stir the mixture – just do the folding, and ignore the uneven appearance of the mixture because that’s precisely what makes the muffins really light.  Over-mixing is where people go wrong.

Next, quickly fold in the cranberries – again no stirring. Now divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Bake near the centre of the oven for 25–30 minutes until well-risen and golden brown.

Remove the muffins from the oven and transfer to a wire cooling tray.

While they’re cooling, make the frosted cranberries. All you need to do is dip each cranberry into beaten egg white and then roll it in caster sugar to give it a generous coating. Leave the berries spread out on baking parchment to become crisp.

Meanwhile, place the icing sugar in a small bowl and gradually add water, a teaspoon at a time, to get a good spreading consistency. Then, spread the icing over the cooled muffins using a small palette knife. Then top each one with 3 frosted cranberries.