baking hits and misses.

i usually use blueberries or mixed berries when baking muffins. so i thought it would be a welcome change to make cranberry muffins. why not. also, i thought it would be just fine to use my old standby muffin recipe and just substitute the blueberries for cranberries. but i quickly realized, after sampling one of the cranberries that they were incredibly tarty. yikes. i knew cranberries were tarty, but these were scrunch your face tart.
plan B: i simmered the cranberries on a little bit of maple and water mixture to lessen the tart factor. unfortunately, i already had the rest of the muffin ingredients mixed and ready to go so i couldn't simmer the cranberries for very long.
result: cranberry muffins that are still too tarty for my liking. to add insult to the injury, i hate throwing away food, so it was a couple of weeks of trying to finish these muffins, my face scrunching each time i had one!
lesson learned: know your cranberries.

the upside: i baked these chocolatiest chocolate chip cookies today and they're oozing with chocolate goodness.