It never fails, February means savoring the rich & smoky flavors of chocolate…dark chocolate in particular around here. For my Wounded Warrior Culinary Class that I teach
we made rich & gooey chocolate molten cakes; thus, I had some extra dark chocolate lying around the house begging me to repurpose it. Two other ingredients I’ve had staring at me are Cara-Cara Navel oranges (my absolute favorite orange that’s only in season now) and cottage cheese (purchased with the intent of making lasagna which did not occur.)
Needless to say I mulled over all the possibilities of what I could make. I thought of a cold cottage salad, but it lost it’s appeal as a winter food. Then I considered molten chocolate orange cakes with cottage cheese, but sweets
(albeit delicious) have lost their appeal once Valentine’s Day passed. It’s the pregnancy hormones! Then I moved onto the thought of quick breads–breads have never lost their appeal since being pregnant. I have a great recipe for orange ricotta pancakes in my cookbook, Mediterranean Diet Cookbook For Dummies so I decided to spin off these and make muffins instead! Muffins are portable, freeze well, and perfectly portioned.
These muffins were a huge hit! Thanks Recipe Redux for challenging us to use up our leftover chocolate this month & match chocolate with our favorite pairings…for me, chocolate and orange go blissfully together! Hope you find yourself smiling and licking those fingers as you take your first bite, too.
Note the rich, ruby-red color of the cara-cara navel orange!
- 2 cps flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ cp dark chocolate chips, chopped
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- Zest of 1 cara-cara orange
- 1 stick (1/2 cp) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cp 4 % fat small-curd cottage cheese
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- For the glaze:
- ½ cp sugar
- ½ cara-cara orange, juiced
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 12 muffin cups with foil liners.
- In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and chopped dark chocolate chips.
- In a bowl, mix together the sugar, orange zest, cottage cheese, and softened butter.
- Make a well the dry ingredients and add in the wet ingredients. Fold in to stir until all flour is mixed in, about 1 minute.
- Scoop ¼ cp of batter into each muffin liner or until evenly divided.
- Bake muffins for 22 minutes or until golden on top and set in the center.
- While muffins are baking, stir together sugar and orange juice.
- Immediately after removing muffins from oven drizzle orange glaze over the top to allow the glaze to soak into the muffins. If necessary, poak small holes in the surface of the muffins to help the syrup soak in. Serve immediately. Recommend storing leftovers in the refrigerator.
A small amount of dark chocolate goes a long way when roughly chopped. The darker, the better!
For the glaze
Muffin batter is thick
By chopping the chocolate you get little flecks in each bite!
Be sure to check out how my fellow Recipe Redux Bloggers paired their leftover chocolate:
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