Orange Berry Muffins - TYVM Dorie G.

It never fails. If I want a delicious baked item, I pull out Dorie Greenspan's "Baking, From my home to yours". She has not let me down yet. Unlike another baking book of mine, whose recipes produce fabulous results yet they fail to tell give little secrets to make the first attempt successful... Dorie sets you up for success!

I loved her recipe as is, but I did create my own orange glaze to drizzle over the top of the muffins. It just sounded so yummy. According to my husband, it balanced the muffin off perfectly. Though not a professional taste tester...he's my best critic...and can be brutally honest. Take for example, last night's attempts at homemade salted caramel for a birthday cake for his boss. Three times was a charm at getting it right! But I'm glad I finally learned!

This recipe is the VERY first recipe in Dorie's book.

INGREDIENTS:
Grated zest & juice of 1 orange (I used navel)
About 3/4 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
3 Tbs honey
1 stick (8 Tbs) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup blueberries - fresh, preferably, or frozen (not thawed)

Decorating sugar (I used raw) for topping (optional)
Orange glaze (an addition I made) (optional)

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (375 if using nonstick or dark pan). 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 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 is 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 22-25 minutes (my oven is hot and cooked in 20). If you want to top the muffins with decorating sugar, sprinkle on the sugar after the muffins have baked for 10 minutes (check at 6 minutes...it would have been too late at 10 minutes in my oven). 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.

FOR THE ORANGE GLAZE:  These are all approximates. Adjust to your liking

1/4 cup confectioner's sugar

1-2 tsp orange emulsion

1+tsp water (added until you get right consistency)

Combine the above 3 ingredients. Add the emulsion to your taste. Do the same for adding water. Add 1 tsp at a time. Icing/glaze should be thick but pourable to just drizzle over the muffins.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins on a Caffeine Buzz

So what do you get when you have 4-5 over ripe bananas, one last fresh farm egg that needs to be used, little time or energy after getting the kids a bath, dinner and ready for bed? You get these marvelous muffins! Dense, moist and packed full of flavor. You can taste every bit of the banana, chocolate, and yes, the hint of coffee/espresso. And even better, they were super easy to make!

I just received a highly recommended book in the mail yesterday, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, by Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito. I couldn't wait to give a try and was thinking maybe this weekend, but the bananas sent me searching for something quick and easy, but I didn't want just another banana bread. Although their Banana Pecan Piloncillo Ice Cream sounded just wonderful, sorry guys, I don't just have piloncillo sitting around...and what is piloncillo anyway?! Guess I'll have to find out!

OK, enough jabbering, here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS  (yield 12 muffins) ( I made 18)

1 1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (about 4 medium) (I used 5)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup whole milk

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp instant espresso powder (NOT ground) (I used 2 tsp of instant coffee)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup (6 oz) semisweet chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli mini chips>

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together the bananas, sugars, butter, milk, and egg.





In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, instant espresso powder, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. 

Fill each cup about 3/4 full. (These barely rise) Bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean.

Move the muffin pan to a cooling rack, and let cool for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove the muffins from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack.

Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Go ahead! Give them a shot. They're great and a wonderful change from the ordinary.

(Note: Bananas that are over ripe, but you are not ready to bake with yet, may be frozen, then thawed when ready for use. So go ahead, save that one or two in your freezer and you may accumulate enough so that when you are ready, you'll have plenty to use!)