More Dorie--Orange Berry Muffins

Orange Berry Muffins
Baking From My Home To Yours Copyright 2006

Grated zest and juice of one orange
About ¾ cup buttermilk
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 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ 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 of a regular-size muffin tin or fit the molds with paper muffin 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, run the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange is strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with a whisk or 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 12 muffin cups.

Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. If you want to top the muffins with decorating sugar, sprinkle the sugar on 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 in the center of the muffins will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 3 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from it’s mold.

Makes 12 muffins.
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I froze some blueberries before leaving for vacation last week so I went hunting for a blueberry recipe. I really didn't want a muffin, coffee cake or pie recipe but you know, that doesn't leave much else! So I did settle for a muffin recipe but one with just a slight twist.

These smelled so good. I was able to get so much zest off of that one orange using my handy-dandy microplane that the orange flavor was nicely intense. I really liked the orange with the blueberries. I did get a little heavy handed with the blueberries which had consequences. The extra berries just sunk to the bottom. They would have been a little bit prettier inside if I had just used the one cup the recipe called for but I threw in about another half cup of them.

So far the weather looks good for my cookout on Saturday. Please, please let the forecast stay that way.

Blast From The Past: Big Chocolate Chip Cookies from July 2006. I was thinking about making cc cookies for my cookout. I love, love this recipe but I'm wondering if it's time to experiment again.

Question of the Day: What's the last new recipe you've tried?