Several months ago I came across a couple of prepared muffin mixes on sale, and when I sale, I mean the food was almost free how cheap it was. One of the muffin mixes I purchased was cranberry orange, and since it needed to be used, I decided to fix them this morning.
I would have rather made the muffins from scratch by modifying this recipe which I’ve been wanting to try for some time, but I keep forgetting to put dried cranberries on my grocery list and consequently didn’t have any on hand. I’m putting them on my list right now by the way. 
Anyway, I will definitely make them from scratch next time using the recipe above that I linked to, but if you ever happen to have a prepared muffin mix on hand, you can make it moister, fruitier, and tastier by adding some canned, fresh or frozen fruit and/or fruit juice. Here’s a picture of my quickie breakfast this morning:
Cranberry Mandarin Muffins (Yield: 5 muffins)
Ingredients:
- 1 pkg. cranberry orange muffin mix
- 1/4 cup milk
- 4 oz. can mandarin oranges
Instructions:
- Make your muffins according to the instructions on the package, but if the recipe calls for milk, decrease the amount of milk and substitute fruit juice. The prepared muffin mix I used called for 1/2 cup of milk so I used 1/4 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of the liquid from the can of mandarin oranges.
- Add the mandarin oranges to the muffin mix, milk, and juice, and then stir until blended.
- Line your muffin tin with paper muffin cups and then fill the cups 3/4 of the way.
- Bake at the temperature that it calls for on the muffin mix. I baked mine at 425 degrees until golden brown.
- The muffins are done if you insert a toothpick in them and they come out clean.
They were really delicious, and if you’re ever in a hurry and have a fruit muffin mix on hand, just add some fruit, juice, and/or nuts to the mix to make it even tastier.
