Good & Good For You: Blood Orange & Lavender Olive Oil Muffins

 

My sweet tooth has been acting up a bit lately. No matter how much I try to feed it broccoli, it screams for sugar. I hate it when it gets cranky, but I will persevere. I'm a firm believer that I can eat healthy AND still satisfy my sugar cravings. My sweet tooth demanded orange: Orange martinis?  Orange jelly candies?  Orange Cake?  What we compromised on, my sweet tooth and I, was a batch of these delicious and good-for-you blood orange and lavender olive oil muffins.  Sweet, but not too sweet, and a treat without being empty calories.  With the addition of the whole wheat pastry flour, these muffins are a little heavier, a little more toothsome than so-called muffins that are really fluffly cupcakes masquerading as breakfast food.  More than breakfast, these are a fruity, flower-scented snack, that also contain a serving of good daily fat, for tea time or any time of the day I need a pretty little pick-me-up. 

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Glenna's Blood Orange & Lavender Olive Oil Muffins

Recipe by Glenna Anderson Muse

 Ingredients:

• 1 cup All purpose wheat flour
• 3/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp dried lavender blossoms (Can be found in Springfield, MO at Mama Jean's Market)
• 1 Whole Blood Orange (or navel orange if no blood oranges are available)
• 1/2 cup Blood Orange Liqueure such as Thatcher's organic (or orange juice if you don't have that or prefer not to use alcohol)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup Olive Oil
• 1/3 cup honey

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.  In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder and soda, and salt. Add lavender and whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside.

2.  In a food processor, process the orange to pulp texture after sectioning it into sixths and removing seeds, sticky lables, and any stem attached.  Process the whole thing: sections, pith, and peel.  To this, add the olive oil, honey, egg, vanilla, and liqueur.  Pulse to process to uniform mixture.

3.  Pour wet ingredients from processor bowl in with dry ingredients and whisk together until completely homogenous mixture, all the dry ingredients wetted.  Do not overmix.

4.  Pour batter into 18  regular-sized muffin tins that have been sprayed with cooking spray or lined with muffin liners. Fill tins about half full to make muffins that come almost up to the top edge of the paper liners.  Fill 2/3 full for larger muffins.   Bake @ 375 degrees for 18-22 minutes or muffin tops spring back to touch and are lightly golden. Cool on racks.

Maybe served with butter and War Eagle Mill Orange Marmalade (not included in nutrition counts.)

Nutrition per muffin:  Calories: 111;  Protein: 3;  Carbs 15;  Fat: 5;  Fiber: 3; Weight Watchers Points: 2 plus 1 good fat.

 

 

Comments

[Gastric Bypass Man]

This is definitely a terrific recipe to satisfy your sweet tooth. I will try this myself, it looks delicious. Thanks for sharing.