Orange Berry Muffins

It has been quite some time since I posted about a muffin. Bascially because I was “muffined out” earlier this year. However, today I happen to be home alone and felt like making muffins!! Yes. I have been on “break” since December 24th and this is my first day home alone. I’m doing housework, sorting thru my gifts I bought for next year (yup, already), thinking about what I’m going to make for dinner and mentally prepping myself for Monday when I have to go back to work.

It is a chilly 12 degrees outside today and warming the house up some by making some muffins was perfect. I decided to go to the TWD site and see what muffin’s they had already made in the past. I found that almost a year ago the then small group had made Dorie’s Orange Berry Muffin. Since I had blueberries in my freezer from my blueberry picking expedition and I just happened to have an orange in my fridge, I knew I had found my choice.

These muffins were very easy to make, smell wonderful before and while baking, have a very soft tender crumb and are not too sweet. This is a great muffin recipe!

Orange Berry Muffins

Dorie Greenspan “Baking: From My Home to Yours”

Ingredients:
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
About 3/4 cup buttermilk *see below
2 large eggs
3 Tablespoons honey
1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup blueberries – fresh, preferably, or frozen (not thawed)
Decorating sugar, for topping (optional)

Getting Ready:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.
Pour the orange juice into a large glass measuring cup or a bowl and pour in enough buttermilk to make 1 cup. Whisk in the eggs, honey and melted butter.
In a large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough – the batter will be lumpy and bubbly, and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the blueberries. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
Bake for 22 to 25 minutes **. If you want to top the muffins with decorating sugar, sprinkle on the sugar after the muffins have baked for 10 minutes. When fully baked, the tops of the muffins will be golden and springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.
*I had to improvise a little because I did not have buttermilk so I made my own by putting about a tablespoon of lemon juice in my measuring cup and then filled it to 3/4 cup with my 1% milk.

**I baked mine for only 20 minutes and they were already getting dark on the top. I did pull them out at 10 minutes as suggested and sprinkled the muffin with sugar.