Friday, May 22, 2009

ORANGE CHOCOLATE in a muffin!

My friends and I use to go to Eaton Center in Toronto on occassion. Toronto is about a three hour drive from here. It's wonderful to have a beautiful city such as Toronto so close. The city is clean and has lots of things to do. We would always go to Chinatown when we went. How often can you get a more authentic Chinese food? Years ago on one of our visits, around 1982 we went to Eaton Center and I found this chocolate shaped like an orange, complete with chocolate segments. I was totally intrigued and just had to buy it. There was nothing like that in the States yet, I don't think, or at least I wasn't seeing it yet. We loved it, promptly devouring the whole thing. How can you not, delicious orange chocolate? See pic below.

These amazing orange chocolate chip muffins from Susan at Food Blogga tastes a lot like those chocolates. Albeit, it's not a chocolate but hey it's a muffin and a darn good one at that! She has a lot of great food there, go on now, go check it out if you haven't already.

CHOCOLATE WALNUT ORANGE MUFFINS
recipe from Food Blogga

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup orange juice, preferably fresh squeezed
2 tablespoons orange zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips (2 tablespoons reserved for tops of muffins)
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts (2 tablespoons reserved for tops of muffins)

Place rack in center of oven and preheat to 375 degrees F. Spray a regular size muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together melted butter, egg, buttermilk, orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla. Add wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir quickly until well combined. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin pan. Sprinkle with reserved 2 tablespoons each of chocolate chips and walnuts.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack to cool for 5 minutes before removing each muffin and placing on a wire rack to cool.

OMG. Love these muffins.

7 comments:

kat said...

Sounds yummy! I used to love to shop at the Eaton Center too!

Mary Bergfeld said...

In my book anyway the chocolate orange combination can't be beat. These sound wonderful. Enjoy the long weekend.

grace said...

chocolate and orange isn't my favorite combination, but maybe that's just because i've only had it a handful of times. i think this is a lovely morning treat, lori, and certainly worth a try!

Justin said...

in my head, i feel like chocolate and orange shouldn't go so well together, but of course they do. these muffins sound great.

chow and chatter said...

wow I love Terrys chocolate orange they are British you know, Canada shares our love for good chocies, what a great idea to put it in a muffin Rebecca oh and Toronto also has an Indian st where you can eat good Indian

Ingrid_3Bs said...

I haven't tried that flavor combo yet. I'll have to fix that.

Happy holiday weekend!
~ingrid

Murasaki Shikibu said...

I used to buy that chocolate when I was in the UK. They don't have them here...or at least I haven't seen them. :(