Orange White Chip Muffins

I started this blog because I love to bake and I love to write.  It was putting my passions to use together while I hope and wait for one of my novels to be published.  It’s not as easy as it looks.  Coming up with the idea to start a blog is easy enough, but designing and implementing the actual site is crazy hard.  After searching and experimenting, I found a designer, Beautiful Dawn Designs, whose link is at the bottom of the page.  I owe my designer a lot of the credit for this website.  I don’t for a second believe I could’ve done it without her.

Once the website is done, it’s time to join Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.  That’s pretty easy, but maintaining and posting to those accounts is time consuming, and it’s harder than I ever thought to get a following.  Dad had just bought a new camera, a pretty nice one at that, so all that was left was learning how to use it and take beautiful photos; that’s still something I’m working on everyday.

Baking and writing the posts is the best part.  I love sharing stories and amazing baked goods with you.  Over the past couple of months, I’ve gained a tremendous amount of respect for other bloggers.  Bloggers who’ve been at this far longer than I and have a much larger following.  Bloggers who I know work just as hard as me, if not harder.  Bloggers who come up with some amazing recipes.

Before this adventure, there were a couple of blogs I visited semi-frequently, and I never posted a comment.  Now that I’m part of the blogging community, I spend any free moment on the computer looking at other blogs, finding recipes I want to try, reading posts, and leaving comments, as I now understand how important those comments are.  So to all the other bloggers out there, thanks for doing what you do, and I’m so excited to be a part of the community.

Why all the talk about blogs today?  This is the first recipe I’m posting that I adapted from another blogger: Baked Bree over at http://bakedbree.com.  I needed some fresh muffin inspiration and found her post for these orange and white chip muffins at just the right time.

The muffins are really good.  I love the cornmeal in them.  It gives just a hint of that amazing cornbread flavor.  I ordered Corn Powder from Momofuku and used it in this recipe to amazing success – not sure if I’ll ever be happy with regular cornmeal now.  I also love the flavor of orange that comes through probably mostly because of the zest.  I also added the orange segments to the batter, making sure each muffin got at least one piece.  They are a nice surprise hidden in each one.  I love the use of the white baking chips.  I use Nestle because they do not contain any chocolate product whatsoever.  The chips that get stirred into the batter melt into the muffin creating moist little nuggets of sweet deliciousness.  The ones that get placed on the top of the muffins don’t melt in.  Some caramelize a little, giving them a different, more complex flavor, while others remain as their typical sweet selves.

Do not, I repeat do not, bake these muffins without paper liners.  I made this mistake and they stuck terribly to the pan, likely because the chips in the batter melted and stuck around the edges.  My first batch was sent to Dad’s work because they were such a mess, but still tasted good.  When baked in paper liners they come out perfectly.  Just in case you’re picky like me, Sur La Table has very nice made in Italy liners.

The muffins are good at room temperature, but I highly recommend eating them warm.  Straight from the oven is good, but frozen and rewarmed is even better as almost all the chips met down into the batter, creating the closest thing to molten lava cake I’ve had since discovering my allergy.  Those melty bites are heaven in my mouth.

These muffins are a delicious little treat for breakfast or perhaps even more appropriate for a midday snack or tea, just be sure to try them warm.  They would also be wonderful for Mother’s Day this weekend!  Mom would definitely be impressed!