Cranberry Orange Muffins

So, I wanted to blog about the best thing I ate today. First, I must start by saying that it took a lot to even get where we were going today. We had another blizzard and were stuck here all day in the dorm yesterday. It stunk. Hard. So today, we were determined to dig ourselves out of this hole and go somewhere. It took a LONG time to try to get Allison's car dug out, give up, and finally get my car to budge. It took a lot of elbow grease, time, girl-power, determination, and...(we might have had a little help from a nice man who pushed me out). But out we were! Finally free. We needed some sustenance after all that. La Carreta (our favorite Mexican restaurant) wasn't open...sad day so we went to Panera. Overwhelmed with the choices for pastries in this place, I asked the girl behind the counter what I her favorite was. I went with her suggestion (cranberry orange muffin) and didn't expect too much from it...I mean...it's a muffin. But Holy Moses!!! It was INCREDIBLE! I even went back up to the counter to tell the girl that she was my friend. :) Here's a clone recipe of the Panera Bread Cranberry Orange Muffin.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cranberries
1 egg
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon grated orange rind


Directions
1) Combine dry ingredients
2) Stir in cranberries
3) Beat egg, orange juice, oil and orange rind
4) Add to dry ingredients all at once
5) Stir just to moisten
6) Spoon into greased muffin cups (fill 3/4 full)
7) Spring tops lightly with a bit of sugar
8) Bake 400F 15-20 mins til lightly browned and firm to the touch

Caramel Pumpkin Pudding Muffins

I think I am addicted to pumpkin...it might even be diagnosable. I found this recipe through one of my favorite daily email suppliers, Hungry-Girl. She is all about taking our favorite foods and making them healthy. Now, before you hit the backspace button and go running and screaming from your computer at the thought of "healthy", I promise you, I wouldn't put this on here if they weren't absolutely "try-worthy". And of course, you could exchange the "diet-sounding" stuff for the real deal and it would come out just the same. But for consistency's sake, I am going to post the ORIGINAL recipe. Oh, and p.s.- the recipe is for a BIG muffin tin but I did cute little ones (refer to picture)

Ingredients
-2 cups of moist-style yellow cake mix
-1 cup canned pumpkin
-1/3 cup liquid egg substitute (or 2 medium eggs)
-2 tablespoons sugar-free maple syrup (or regular maple syrup)
-2 teaspoons cinnamon
-2 teaspoons Splenda (or sugar)
-1/8 teaspoon salt
-1/3 cup water

Topping
-caramel syrup (optional)

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350
2) Combine all ingredients and whisk for about 2 minutes
3) Spray the bottom of a 12-cup muffin tin
4) Spoon the batter into the tins and bake for 12 minutes
5) Once muffins have cooled, drizzle with caramel syrup