Nigella Lawson's Orange Breakfast Muffins

Orange Breakfast Muffins
Home Cooking

My current morning breakast ritual is simple but effective. It requires flipping on the kettle and pushing 45 seconds into the microwave. The former is for instant coffee and the latter is to warm up a muffin. I'm loving morning muffins so much sometimes it keeps me awake the night before in anticipation. The raspberry and oat muffins kept me going for a while but last week I moved onto these orange muffins.

From cookbook to tray to plate

I first spotted the recipe in Nigella Lawson's 'Nigella Bites' about a month ago. All the ingredients were bought and ready to go but I came down with a cold so my baking plans were foiled. It's interesting because as a child, I was never a huge fan of fruity flavors in ice-cream, desserts or candy but it's something that has grown on me over the years. My craving for orange muffins was so severe I repurchased the necessary ingredients and whipped up a batch last week. I've been happily munching on these every morning for breakfast since then.


I followed the original recipe exactly so that's what you'll see typed out below. It was very easy to follow and simply involves a bowl of dry ingredients and a bowl of wet ingredients. I used orange juice freshly squeezed from 2 navel oranges. That and the zesting was probably the most laborous part.

Orange Breakfast Muffins
Makes 12

Ingredients:

• 75g unsalted butter, melted
• 250g self-raising flour
• 25g ground almonds
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 75g caster sugar
• zest of 1 orange
• 100ml freshly squeezed orange juice
• 100ml milk
• 1 egg

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, ground almonds, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and orange zest.

3. In a separate bowl, combine the orange juice and milk. Add the egg and whisk together.

4. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Use a fork to mix and form a batter. The batter will be lumpy but that's fine, just make sure you don't overmix.

5. Spoon the batter evely into the 12 holes.

6. Bake for 20 minutes.

7. Transfer the muffins onto a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.

The muffins are best served warm. The texture is light and fluffy with a distinct nutty moistness from the almond meal. I liked that they weren't too sweet and the orange flavor was very subtle. They weren't anything like those huge indulgent sweet muffins you gorge on when you're depressed, which makes them perfect for breakfast. They're too mild to start tasting repetitive.

Close-up with butter

I tried one straight out of the oven with butter, as suggested in the cookbook. It was pretty good but I found an alternative I prefer. What I didn't eat straight away I wrapped individually in cling wrap and froze. In the mornings, I microwave them for 45 seconds and drizzle on some unsweetened Greek yoghurt. Weekday mornings suck but having a muffin and coffee to start the day makes a world of difference.