Cranberry/Pumpkin Muffins

Have you ever thought of this combination before?

Growing up in Alaska,  and being surrounded by forests full of the low-bush variety of wild cranberries, we had many outings as youngsters to gather them in Autumn.  I still remember the pleasure of sinking into the deep comfortable moss and grabbing handfuls to quickly fill my bucket.  We were always thinking of ways to use them.  Favorites were cranberry/orange sauce and cranberry/apple gelatin mold, both great with fowl.  

Here in my home in London I’ve carried on with the use of these lovely red berries bursting with tartness over the years.  Yesterday I put my hand to muffins.  

I thought the addition to the pumpkin variety could produce pleasing results.  I first made a batch using two cups of the very large fresh ones added to my pumpkin muffin recipe.  They were pretty with the red gems very evident but too tart, over-powering the taste.  I then tried again, cutting the amount of cranberries back to half a cup in the recipe, as well as adding the same amount of coarsely chopped walnuts.  They were tasty but each berry still rather tart to bite into.  My daughter and her friends who ate them merrily, suggested that they would be just fine if the large fresh cranberries were cut in roughly half.  This would result in more diffusion of the tartness.  

For my third baking, I decided to go with dried cranberries, always available, as well as  chopped walnuts.  These are the ones pictured here.  

I leave the final decision to you.  Which will it be?  Chopped fresh cranberries or dried with the addition of walnuts to pumpkin muffins?  Great time of year to give it a go.