fresh crans are the best in baked goods! they cook in the baking process and become nice and juicy and soft.

I love cooking/baking with fresh cranberries. I still love to wait to hear when they start to "pop!" while cooking

I've made muffins with uncooked cranberries. For proportions, treat them like very large blueberries (that is, don't go overboard or the muffin will get gloppy because the popping berries add so much moisture).

You may also want to make sure your muffin batter is on the sweet side, as the cranberries will be VERY tart. (I don't ordinarily like really sweet muffins, but for this, I make an exception.)

I buy extra bags of fresh cranberries in the fall and keep them in the freezer all year long. We like a bit o' tart in our baked goods, so I often toss a handful of unthawed berries into muffins and even cornbread. (I'm O.K. with experimenting and with food not turning out "perfectly," whatever that is.) Our favorite is pumpkin pie--We call it "bobber pie," because the berries float to the top and look like lots of red fishing bobbers. We took one to a get-together last year, and the host, who said he doesn't usually care for sweets, asked us if he could keep it! Mmmmmmmm.

YES to fresh cranberries in muffins. i chop them up a bit first, because i think they are too big otherwise. i never worry about making the batter too much sweeter. if you find the finished product too tart, you can always slather it in honey (unfortunately, you will get no sympathy for this predicament)

I also cut them in muffins. After adapting a cranberry bread recipe for muffins I found that leaving the berries whole gave some of the big berries too little time to cook down and sweeten. It's easier to cut them in half save for the smallest ones. The muffins come out with a nice balance of sweet and tart, and I don't have to add more sugar.

These are my fave recipe for fresh cranberries: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Cranberry-Orange-Muffins

I usually have a half bag floating around after the holidays, and throw them in pancakes. They're really good!

Martha Miller just used fresh cranberries in some muffins: http://www.marthajmiller.com/2011/11/16/recipe-crunchy-cranberry-muffins/

I love putting them in banana bread! I keep frozen ones in the freezer all year for this purpose.