I think I must be in the mood for spring because the combination of raspberries from my garden and oranges sounds so bright and sunny. I really like making muffins as opposed to a loaf when I need something quick that I can put into my kid’s lunches, I usually make a big batch (like this one) and freeze most of them, then I just grab a frozen muffin and put it in a ziplock and into my kids lunches. Being frozen keeps them from getting squished and they defrost really quickly so they’re ready to eat in an hour or so. The last bonus to freezing them is you don’t have to bake fresh muffins all week to have them available all week… muffin hack!

Just like my Lemon Raspberry Loaf you need to peel off the skin from the oranges or zest them in some way, I like to use a soft fruit peeler to take off the zest from citrus, it makes the job quick and easy and doesn’t take the pith (the bitter white stuff under the zest) with it. Then you will need to remove the remaining peel to get the flesh of the orange separated. I know this sounds complex but it’s really easy and it’s how you’ll get a big punch of flavor from any citrus fruit without using artificial extracts. I use a bullet style blender to blend the zest and juice with some sugar into a pulp; I do this step first so it’s ready to go.

Just an FYI to make it that much more successful, when making any kind of cake recipe, it’s always best to have your ingredients at room temperature. It’s not essential so don’t give up if you forgot but basically when you add cold ingredients to a fat based product, in this case butter, it solidifies the butter and you can end up with some greasy spots in the finished product. To make eggs room temperature quickly, just submerge them in some hot tap water for 5 minutes or so and if you’re adding milk to a batter, just microwave it for  approx. 30 seconds.

 

Orange Raspberry Yogurt Muffins

30g Orange Peel, blended to a pulp

234g Orange Flesh, blended to a pulp

50g Sugar

90g Butter, softened

275g Sugar

465g All Purpose Flour

136g Eggs (approx. 3)

12g Baking Powder

5g Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

195g Plain yogurt

150g Frozen Raspberries

 

Preheat your oven to 325F, (350F if using convection). Line muffin pans with paper liners to have them ready to go.

Remove zest and flesh from the oranges as described above and blend with 50g sugar to a pulp, set aside. Cream the butter with remaining 275g of sugar until light and fluffy, approx. 2 minutes on medium speed. Add eggs andmix to combine. Add orange pulp and mix to combine In a seperate bowl, add flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and whisk together to evenly distribute leveners. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix to combine. Add the yogurt and mix to combine. Add the remaining flour and mix to combine and then keep mixing on low speed for approx. 1 minute to develop some structure. Fold the frozen raspberries into the batter by hand (using a spatula). Evenly distribute the batter into each muffin cup. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, approx. 25-30 minutes. Enjoy!