Monday, January 13, 2014

Gluten Free Mexican Chocolate Orange Muffins

I consider myself to be a recipe renovator.  I am not a trained chef, but I like to cook, love to eat, and I am constantly tweaking recipes to better suit my tastes.  I saw a recipe for Gluten Free Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins on Cup4Cup's Facebook page.  The first time I made them, I decreased the amount of chocolate chips, made mini muffins instead of regular size muffins, and added orange peel to the glaze.


Cup4Cup topped my Favorite Gluten Free Products of 2013 list.  I have made so many amazing baked goods with it in the past year.  I purchase Cup4Cup from The Fresh Market or Williams-Sonoma.  I use a variety of different gluten free flours, but this one is my favorite.  


Today, I decided to use Mexican chocolate in my muffins instead of mini chocolate chips.  I always have Taza Mexican Chocolate in the house so I can make Mexican Chocolate Banana Muffins.  I buy Taza at the Winter Park Whole Foods in the cheese and wine section.  It can also be purchased from amazon.com.  Taza Mexican chocolate is organic, gluten free, dairy free, and soy free.  


I purchased Nielsen-Massey Pure Vanilla Bean Paste for this recipe from The Fresh Market.  


I weighed my flour and sugar on my kitchen scale.  The sugar looks brown because it's organic cane sugar. 


Whenever I need an egg at room temperature for a recipe, I put it in a bowl of warm water while I assemble the dry ingredients.  


There is no need to use a mixer for this recipe.  I made a well in my flour mixture before adding my wet ingredients.  


Be gentle with your batter.  Stir until just combined.  


I chop my Mexican chocolate into very small pieces because I am making mini muffins.  


I absolutely adore mini muffins.  Not only are they cute, but they are also great for potion control.  Three mini muffins are the equivalent of one regular size muffin.  When I eat regular size muffins, I tend to eat 2, or sometimes even 2 1/2 or 3.  When I eat mini muffins, I am content with 4 or 5, which saves me a lot of calories.  I purchased my mini muffin pans from amazon.  You can view the mini and half mini pans I own here.   You can turn any of your favorite muffin recipes into mini muffins by decreasing the cooking time for about 10 minutes.  


I use my one tablespoon cookie scoop to fill my muffin pans.  Somehow, I always end up a muffin short with this recipe.


For the glaze, I like to add in a 1/2 teaspoon of orange peel from Penzeys for an extra little kick of orange flavor.  I buy almost all of my spices from the Penzeys location in Winter Park.  


I like that the glaze is just thick enough that it doesn't run down the sides of the muffins.


I served these muffins for dessert last night and for breakfast this morning.  

Gluten Free Mexican Chocolate Orange Muffins 

Ingredients

280 grams (2 cups) Cup4Cup gluten free flour
200 grams (1 cup) organic cane sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 large egg - room temperature
55 grams (1/4 cup) canola oil (I use Spectrum Organic)
2/3 C orange juice
Zest of one large orange
1 T vanilla bean paste
2.7 ounces Mexican chocolate - chopped (could substitute 1/2 C mini chocolate chips)

Glaze

115 grams (1 cup) powdered sugar
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 T orange juice
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp orange peel (could substitute 1 tsp orange zest)

Directions

Preheat oven to 365 degrees and spray your muffin pans with cooking spray.

Add your flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a large bowl.  Stir well to combine.  

In a medium size bowl, beat your egg with a fork before adding the canola oil, orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla bean paste.  Tip -- after you zest your orange, squeeze out and strain the juice for use in the muffin batter or glaze.

Make a well in your flour mixture, then add the wet ingredients.  Stir with a spoon until just combined.  Gently stir in the Mexican chocolate.  

Fill your muffin cups with 1 tablespoon of batter, then bake for 10 minutes.  

Once the muffins have cooled, prepare the glaze by whisking all the ingredients together in a small bowl.  Dip the top of each muffin in the glaze.  

Store covered at room temperature for up to 24 hours.  

Makes 35 or 36 mini muffins.  


This is a picture of the first batch of muffins I made with this recipe, using a 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips.  I like the recipe equally well with the mini chips or with the Mexican chocolate.  

This recipe has been adapted from a recipe on The Baked Equation.  You can view it here.  



0 comments:

Post a Comment