Categories: BakingMuffins

Blueberry Orange Muffins

These blueberry orange muffins are fresh and light with a hint of orange flavor and packed with delicious blueberries. Eat them as a tea time snack, or use them as the perfect breakfast muffin to start your day with. The muffins are great warm or at room temperature and they are particularly great split, toasted and spread with butter or jam.

Edited August, 2020 to add:

I love this recipe and realized I had not updated the pictures on the blog post that originally went live in August of 2010. I have made this recipe plenty of times, and also in a cake form too. Fresh blueberries are now easier to source in India and I realized it was time this post got a face lift. The original post photo, along with the step by step remains for these blueberry orange muffins, along with the new ones. I am sure you can make out which ones are the updated pics 😉

Original Post published in August, 2010:

For days there were these orange colored things that were lying in my fruit basket– getting more and more ripe as the days passed by. DH isn’t a fan of oranges, so I had to come up with some innovative way to get it in his stomach (I know, I know…they are like kids!). He is a Taurean, and very rigid about things he wants to do and things he doesn’t. So no matter how many times I told him please eat an orange, his hand would always reach out for the banana lying on the side.

Now, I absolutely HATE when I have to throw something away because it’s gone bad. And, being new at grocery management, the last few months I have had to throw quite some stuff away, especially since we live in a town where easy access to Indian vegetables is not available. So, it would have killed me to throw these away too- even though I am talking about 2 oranges- but still!

I rummaged through my baking books to find out the best way to use these oranges and “Super” Dorie (“Baking from my Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan) came to the rescue! And she had a recipe that included blueberries too…double whammy (my blueberries had also been sitting for some time)! I mean there are days when things just work for you and this was just one of those days!:)

These blueberry orange muffins aren’t overtly sweet, (just the right amount of sweet V and I like), with a hint of orange in the background, and the star player being the blueberries.

Since I had more oranges and berries than the recipe called for I doubled the amounts. Plus, the double recipe also gave me a chance to use my oh! so beautiful Nordic ware muffin bundt pans (I told ya it was just one of those days!)

Blueberry Orange muffins

Recipe Type: muffins, desserts, breakfast, tea time

Author: Shumaila

Serves: 12 muffins

Ingredients

Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
About 3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, room temperature
3 tablespoons honey
50 grams butter
50 ml vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour ( I have successfully subbed half of the all purpose flour with sifted whole wheat flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup blueberries- fresh, preferably, or frozen (not thawed)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Grease pan with butter or spray. Or line with muffin liners.
In a measuring glass, add the orange juice. Pour enough buttermilk to make 1 cup.
Pour the orange juice into a large measuring cup or bowl and pour in enough buttermilk to make 1 cup.
Whisk in the eggs, honey, oil, vanilla 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 strong.
In a bowl sift the flours, 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 (you can coat the blueberries in a bit of the flour mix so that they don't sink in at the bottom).
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. If you want to top the muffins with decorating sugar, sprinkle on the sugar (coarse 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.

Storage Tip:

If you want to keep them, wrap them airtight and pop them into the freezer, where they'll keep for up to 2 months; rewarm in a 350-degree-F oven. Or split and toast them!

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