Cranberry Orange MUFFINS

...with a hint of GARLIC. Yes you read right.
I didn't mean for them to have a garlic taste.
I had a little mishap while making these muffins.

I started off really well, everything was going great. I had all my ingredients out and I thought to myself, 'these are going to be the best muffins ever'. Well that was essentially the kiss of death.

I actually forget an ingredient. THE APPLESAUCE. About a 1/4 cup to be exact. I use applesauce in my muffins to replace 1/2 of the fat. So instead of 1/2 cup of butter (or in my recipe-Smart Balance Spread), I use 1/4 cup of fat and 1/4 cup of applesauce.

I noticed this when they were already in the oven for about 5 minutes. I was so bummed. But I figured that I may as well just let them finish baking and see what happens.

In the meanwhile, I was preparing something for dinner and I was chopping shallots and fresh garlic. The timer rang for the muffins and I preceeded to unload the muffins from the pan with my very garlicy fingers.

The heat from the hot muffins melted the garlic on my fingers right into the already 2nd rate muffins. What could be worse? Now I had dry, garlicy orange cranberry muffins.

However,after all was said and done, the muffins really weren't all that bad. They looked good-they had a nice shape and had risen well. They really were not that dry even though I forgot the applesauce and other than an occasional bite of raw garlic flavor, the taste was pretty good. LOL!

Use this as a learning experience though. Always have ALL your ingredients in front of you when preparing to bake something and NEVER, handle fresh out of the oven baked goods with raw garlic hands.