Recipe #62: Christmas Muffins

Recipe: Marmalade Muffins
Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks
Time: 40 min
Ease: 2
Taste: 8
Leftover Value: 10
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

I woke up Christmas morning with an hour to spare before brunch with my in-laws. Despite my urge to lay around in my pajamas for that hour, I knew I must make at least one recipe. Fortunately, I still had two breakfast items left.

In an effort to not stress myself out too much during the holiday, I went to bed on Christmas Eve with my morning alarms turned off and no strict plans set for making any recipes. (Naturally, in the back of my mind I was planning what I would make if I woke up in time).

However, I did not plan out my ingredients. As in, the butter that should have been softened ahead of time.

I used the cheater's trick of cutting my refrigerated butter up and letting it sit for 15 minutes on the counter while I prepared the rest of the recipe.

Sometimes this works.

And sometimes I get impatient and use....the microwave.

The horrors, I know!

I was afraid these muffins were going to have too strong of an orangey flavor.

You know, these muffins called Marmalade muffins

Still, the zest of two oranges seemed like quite a lot to me.

The muffins were super easy to make, super easy as in everything went into one bowl and, aside from needing softened butter, they were all ingredients that could be easily tossed in.

One thing I will point out is that PW uses mini muffin tins.

In keeping with trying not to make any changes to her recipes, I used mini muffin tins. I used a mini muffin tin I already had and a mini muffin tin my sister-in-law, Kristina, gave me. She bought it after our Thanksgiving breakfast of minis and never used it.

I say all this to say that the tin Kristina gave me was a hair larger than my mini muffin tin.  The muffins that cooked in her tin came out beautifully. The smaller muffins, the ones that were cooked in my tin, did not. They stuck to the pan and were completely impossible to bring to brunch without hanging my head in shame.

I made a note not to use mini muffin pans again (even though the Kristina pan muffins all came out lovely), but my mother-in-law raved about the muffins, then stated that her favorite part was that they were mini.

Great.

All in all, they were a yummy breakfast treat. The orange wasn't overpowering, as I had feared. It was light and refreshing.

I expected them to be just another side item at breakfast, something that went unnoticed, but everyone loved them!

My favorite part was the sugar glaze poured on top just before taking them out of the pan.

My least favorite part was cleaning the pan.