Orange and Chocolate Muffins

Orange and Chocolate muffins are very light and fluffy, perfect for breakfast or may be just anytime. This unusual combination is a sure winner.

Hello friends how are you doing?? Well today I’m playing with my favorite ingredient chocolate. I had to bake muffins…with the season of strawberry gone, banana not my preferred fruit for baking…I am in a fix what to do, which fruit would pair well with chocolate. Think baby, think…kids were eating orange and there it was, why not use orange in my muffins. I am very happy that I did.

I had all the ingredients and a perfect recipe for muffins, it was time to bake. Since the ingredients are unusual and not sure how it would come out, it was more exciting to bake them. With oranges in the refrigerator and rest of ingredients in my pantry and incredible muffin was baked. These yummy muffins were not only our breakfast at home but also made their way into my kids breakfast boxes at school. They are super easy to bake and you will end up hearing wow. As the batter goes into the muffin pans these gorgeous muffins demanded more chocolate, so there you go more chocolate chips on the batter. As they were getting baked the sweet citrus smell filled the house and what a way to start your day. It was fun baking citrus and orange together, personally I like this
combination. I enjoy orange flavored chocolates.

My house smells citrus now and this citrusy smell just relaxes me and I’m sure it does the same to you as well. As you know by now I am all for chocolates, no Indian sweet for me at all, no ways…this muffin would work perfect for me as a dessert as well as it did being our breakfast. It hits the right spot with its citrus and chocolate combination and can be eaten whenever you want. Isn’t it great, well it is. I used a combination of whole wheat and all purpose flour and replaced butter with oil. You know use of oil increases the shelf life of muffins and make them super moist. The addition of freshly squeezed orange juice and orange zest gave a perfect between citrus and chocolate. Once baked it will stay fresh for up to 5 days in an airtight container.

Once baked and out of oven these orange and chocolate muffins had a beautiful muffin top. Trust me these light moist and fluffy muffins will make you simply irresistible to stop at one. With every bite the flavor of citrus and a hint of orange zest was just yum and that chocolate oozing out was to die for.

Here i’ve used oil instead of butter to make muffins more moist and whole wheat flour makes them little on healthier side. Orange, cranberry and chocolate are a real winner here and one delicious combination. You can too enjoy these muffins like we did by following the recipe mentioned below. Adapted from “lapetitchef.in”.

Ingredients:

· 100 grams All purpose flour

· 150 grams whole wheat flour

· 80 ml canola oil

· ¾ th cup yogurt
2 tbsp cranberry sauce
2 tbsp dried cranberries

· 100 grams dark chocolate chips

· ½ cup orange juice

· 2 eggs

· 100 grams – granulated sugar

· 75 grams – light brown sugar

11/2 teaspoon baking powder

· ½ teaspoon baking soda

· 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

· ½ teaspoon salt

Dried cranberries to sprinkle on top

Directions

1. Preheat the oven and grease the muffin pans with butter.

2. In a large mixing bowl add the oil and granulated and light brown sugar, whisk well till combined. Add the eggs one at a time, whisk till well combined. Add the orange juice, yogurt, vanilla extract, cranberry sauce and whisk well till combined.

3. Next for dry ingredients, take a bowl add flour, baking soda, baking powder, baking soda and salt, mix well.

4. Now slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Its perfectly ok if there are lumps but please do not over mix.

5. Next gently fold dried cranberries and chocolate chips into the batter.

6. Now spoon the batter into the greased muffin pans, fill till top for good muffin top.

7. Sprinkle more dried cranberries on the top of batter.

8. Now bake at 220 degrees C for five minutes then lower the temperature to 180 degrees C and bake
for 15 minutes or until the toothpick inserted comes out clean.

9. Enjoy with your favorite Earl grey or cappuccino, whatever you like.

Love,