Pomegranate Cranberry Jelly Donut Muffins

Ingredients:

Ginger Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce

340g fresh or frozen cranberries
1 cup sugar
120 ml cup water
120 ml POM Wonderful pomegranate cranberry juice
1 tbsp lemon juice
2,5 cm fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp ground ginger

Jelly Donut Muffins

Makes 21 – 24 Muffins

1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups AP flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups almond milk (or milk of your choice)
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp butter, melted, for dipping
1/2 cup sugar, for rolling
1 tbsp cinnamon, for rolling

Directions:

Ginger Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce

Mix all ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Turn to a simmer and, stirring frequently, cook until thickened, about 20 minutes. Strain through a fine-meshed sieve into a large bowl. Let cool.

Jelly Donut Muffins

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease your muffin tins with cooking spray. Grease well. You don't want to encourage any muffin stickage. I promise.

2. Beat together sugar and eggs in a large bowl until fluffy. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Mix well. Pour into the sugar/egg mixture and mix until well combined. Add in the vegetable oil, almond milk, and vanilla. Stir until well combined.

3. Pour batter into well-greased muffin tins, filling each about 3/4 of the way full. Bake in a normal oven that works as it's supposed to for about 15 minutes or until the tester comes out clean. If you are a using an oven that is chronically below the temperature it says it is...then bake for about 25 minutes or until a tester inserted comes out clean.

4. In one small bowl, melt the butter. In a second small bowl, combine 1/2 cup sugar with 1 tbsp cinnamon. Once the muffins are cool enough to touch, dunk them first in the butter and then in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place them on a wire rack to cool.

5. If you don't want jelly donut muffins, you can stop here. But if you do, then proceed onward. Once the muffins are cool, the filling can begin. Now, if you are adept at all in any way at piping filling into muffins or cupcakes, then go for it. When I tried to put my cranberry sauce into a piping bag and then pipe it in ... mass chaos ensued and cranberry sauce ended up everywhere BUT inside the muffin. Plan b. Coming from the bottom of the muffin, cut a small circle into the bottom of the muffin, only putting your knife about 2/3 of the way through. Then, using the back of a spoon, pop out this little piece of cupcake. Pipe or pour some POM cranberry sauce into this hole that you've just created and then put the piece of cupcake that you've popped out back into the hole ... i.e. cork it.

Delicious, jelly doughnut inspired muffins, filled with the sweet-tart taste of pomegranate & cranberry with just the right amount of ginger for spice. Glazed with butter, cinnamon, and sugar, these are the perfect holiday muffin.