Cranberry Muffins with a "hit" of POM

Happy Valentine's Day! Oh, it feels good to be back to cooking and baking! Thank you, again, for all of the well wishes as I think it really helped! My wrist is back to working order, a little weaker than before but it will get there.

So, as I mentioned before I am a bit behind on product reviews and recipes to share. I was contacted a few weeks back by some nice people over at POM Wonderful about sampling some of their POM Juice. I've purchased it before and was fiddling around with a Cranberry Muffin type recipe that incorporated some of the juice into it, so I was thrilled to have more juice to help me get this recipe closer to what I thought it could be.

Soon as I received the juice, My Boys saw it and were ready to have a cup of it. POM Juice is 100% pure pomegranate juice. Nothing un-natural added, just the pure and simple juice. It comes straight from the trees that the folks at POM grow and is picked and then squeezed (gotta love that you don't have to do it yourself, that can be a pain to do!) into juice. Their orchards are located in California so you can feel good about supporting a homegrown company. This is something you can feel good about sharing with your kids, and even drinking for your own health benefits.

Now, I never realized that there were different varieties of pomagranates. Seems that the name POM Wonderful is due to the Wonderful variety. Who knew? Not me! This variety is filled with antioxidents, a delicious tastes and a really pretty ruby-red color. If you haven't tried POM juice, grab a bottle and give it a try. They even have a ton of great recipes on their site you can sample.

By now, you are probably wondering if I have perfected my muffin recipe yet.

From Family, Friends and Food

From Family, Friends and Food

Well, it is definitely closer to what I was hoping for, but I need to adjust the sweetness as the tart cranberries can be over-powering if you aren't a fan of them. As the recipe stands right now, it is tasty and with a dab of butter they won't be going to waste in my house. I still have more POM Wonderful Juice to use, so I'm sure I'll get it right in the next few weeks. I did love the essence of POM juice in the muffins, so I know that measurement is just right. The POM juice is a nice offset to the tart cranberries. But, the overall muffin still needs a bit more sweetness so more testing is required.

I also asked for some recipe ideas of my friends who are on Twitter and have a salad dressing recipe to try and an amazing sounding sorbet. Can't wait to try them both and will share my results soon as I do!

Here are some other muffins that would be perfect for sharing with a loved one:

Cooking With Christine made Orange-Honey Muffins

Sophistimom made Cinnamon Oatmeal Apple Muffins

Grumpy's Honeybunch made Double Chip Pumpkin Muffins

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day and I'll be back soon with more recipes! Boy, I've missed you all!