almond orange poppy seed muffins

We interrupt this blog to post about something that Mary baked. With her own two hands. She did not buy this from a shop. It tasted pretty good. She might be impartial.

I like poppy seeds. In muffins. I like almonds. I also had an orange in the kitchen. This is pretty much how this all came about – also, I was hungry and wanted some breakfast.

I searched initally for just “Poppy Seed Muffins” and got a few results and decided to center my recipe around this one I found at Big City, Little Kitchen for “Almond Poppy Seed Muffins”. I had to play around with the ingredients a little though because A) I didn’t have any plain yogurt and B) I didn’t have quite that amount of butter and C) I was too lazy to go to the store. Instead, I substituted the yogurt for some evaporated milk and cut the amount of butter in half, which was all I had left in the fridge. I did not further substitute the butter, but you could use some vegetable oil instead or use a whole stick of melted butter. The almonds I used where blanched and slivered almonds, which I toasted in a dry pan on the stove before grounding some up in a food processor (don’t do what I did and leave the kitchen though – you might burn the almonds! ahh!). The almonds were almost what I wanted, and I ground them up a little further with a mortar and pestle to make sure it was a fine ground.

Also, I fudged my recipe a bit and didn’t do it all in the right order, but it all turned out well in the end. The muffins just have a hint of orange in them, the almond flavor is strong and the poppy seeds round it all out. You could go for more orange flavor by adding more orange zest, orange extract, or even a bit of fresh orange juice to the batter.

Here’s my resulting recipe:

Almond Orange Poppy Seed Muffins

* 1/2 cup finely ground almonds
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1/4 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 3/4 cup evaporated milk
* 1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) melted butter
* 2 eggs
* 1 tsp almond extract
* 2 heaping tb poppy seeds
* 1 tsp (or so) orange zest

Glaze
* some powdered sugar
* some orange juice
* slivered, toasted almonds for garnish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper cups or butter it up.

Toast almonds in a dry pan. Grind em up! Save some for the garnish.

Whisk together the first six ingredients in a big bowl. In another bowl, whisk together your remaining wet ingredients (minus the poppy seeds and zest), and pour into the dry ingredients. Stir it all up until combined; lumps are okay, no worries. Add in the poppy seeds and orange zest and mix together again to create almond and orange harmony.

Spoon batter into the muffin tin and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until edges are golden brown (toothpick should come out clean).

For the glaze – I pretty much eyeballed this. I spooned about 5-6 tablespoons of powdered sugar into a bowl and added enough orange juice to make it spreadable. I wanted a thick glaze, so I didn’t add too much orange juice. If your glaze gets too thin, just add a little more powdered sugar and only add a little OJ at a time. I spooned this over the top of the muffins and scattered slivered almonds on top for a garnish and extra crunch.

Makes 12 good sized muffins.