12 February 2018

Chocolate Orange Muffins

Name: Chocolate Orange Muffins
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 12 muffins
Ingredients: 2 oranges, (zest and juice); 250 ml orange juice (you may not need all of this); 1 egg, (beaten well); 90 ml vegetable oil; 250 g plain flour; 2 tsp baking powder; 1/2 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 5 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder; 100 g sugar

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How good do these chocolate orange muffins look?! Moist, sweet, chocolatey and fragrant. This may be the ultimate muffin recipe!

Hey friends, how’s it going? This past weekend this little food blog turned a mammoth TEN years old! That’s like a Great Grandmother in the world of blogging :D

Obviously I fancied making a gigantic showstopper cake to celebrate.

One that was so darn beautiful it broke Pinterest, but as: a/ I was so strapped for time and b/ I’m not the world’s best showstopper baker, I figured I’d rootle around in the archives here on the Hedgecombers, and remake one of my favourite baking recipes from the past 10 years.

And these chocolate orange muffins won!

They were originally published back in 2013, but the pictures were horrible. So here’s the same great recipe, with far prettier pictures!

And if you fancy the occasional upgrade to make this recipe far more decadent, hold on to your hats because I have a naughty (but oh so nice!) chocolate orange buttercream recipe coming out real soon too. Shhh ;)

Meanwhile back in 2013…

These Chocolate Orange Muffins are a delightful sweet treat, perfect for packed lunches and after school treats. They also freeze really well for those extra busy days – keep reading to find out how best to freeze them.

Jonny & I both reached a health junction recently. Surprisingly, it’s the first time we’ve ever had the same desire to clean up our diets, at the same time.

His was initiated by a routine 40+ health check from our surgery, mine was sparked by a mild despair at the numerous, minor health conditions I’ve been living with for the the past few months. And the knowledge that if I don’t change things soon, it might be too late.

So, whilst I’m cooking up a deliciously moist batch of chocolate orange muffins today, that contain both sugar & white flour (both of which I’m planning to cut back on in our every day meals), once cooled they’ll be headed straight for the freezer.

I’ll freeze them in individual bags, making them easy to pull out and pop in Jonny’s lunchbox first thing in the morning.

By being frozen we won’t be able to mindlessly snack on them, and hopefully they’ll be sweet enough to stop him from needing to buy chocolate on his way to work.

If you want to try freezing your muffins too, aim to squeeze or suck all the air out of the bag before sealing and freezing, and use them within a week or two. This will make sure the flavour stays fresh and the texture is maintained. And let’s be honest, no one wants to eat a freezer burnt muffin!

Oh, and by making them with cocoa powder, rather than chocolate, you get to control exactly how much sugar goes into your bake. Clever huh?