Orange berry muffins

One of my coworkers recently had her second child. Her friend went to TakeThemAMeal.com to help friends coordinate meals that we could bring to the newly expanded family. As someone who has been through the challenges of being a new parent, I knew how much my coworker would appreciate having a prepared meal brought over.

I signed up to bring food to my coworker and her husband, but I wanted to bring them something that most people wouldn't bring. When my coworker had her first child several years ago, I made them Chinese food because I knew nobody else would cook it.

This year I decided to make them breakfast since it is a meal that often gets overlooked. I made them homemade cereal bars, banana bread and these orange berry muffins. My oven must have been running hot all weekend long because even though I baked all of my breakfast goodies at or under the minimum recommended time, everything looked slightly overdone. Oh well.

Despite my oven temperature issues, these muffins were really tasty. The orange zest and juice were subtle enough to provide a good background flavor to the muffin, and the blueberries added that extra pop of juice when you bit into them. I love a good blueberry muffin, and these orange berry muffins are a good variation to the classic recipe.

I'm happy to report that my coworker, husband and their 2 year old daughter thoroughly enjoyed these muffins. My husband enjoyed them too, so it looks like Dorie Greenspan came through once again for us!

Ingredients

• Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
• About 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 large eggs
• 3 TBSP honey
• 1 stick (8 TBSP) 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)

Directions

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-sized 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 fragrance or 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 (mine baked for 22 and seemed a bit overdone). 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.

Yield: 12 muffins

Source: Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 3