Busy Cooking: Blood Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins

I have been searching for blood oranges since last year, and victory is mine!  Never had or heard of one, well you should!  Last year, when I was horribly ill during my pregnancy with Maeve, I was into the third month of not being able to drink water.  We were at the Osaka airport, heading to New Zealand and I was worried there would be nothing for me to drink on the 14 hour flight.  I somehow could drink OJ, but not water- go figure.  The only OJ I could find at the airport that day was blood orange juice, so I had to give it a try.  At $5 a glass, I ended up drinking 4!!!! It was THAT good.

What are blood oranges?  They look like normal oranges:

But they're slightly different on the inside:

They taste a little sweeter, and have a lot more juice on the inside.

I finally found blood oranges last Friday, so I bought 10.  I brought them home and began to wonder why I had bought so many and what I would do with them.  Of course, I would make some juice, just look at it:

After an extensive search through google, I found some blood orange margaritas for Dave to make for me another time, and then I found these blood orange chocolate chip muffins on White on Rice Couple blog. I have to admit, I was very hesitant to try them, and not sure of how they'd actually taste.  Oh. My. Goodness.  They are delicious!  The only bad thing about them is Dave is out of town, so I'm sitting here eating them all myself and boy are they addictive!

If you can't find blood oranges, I'm sure a regular orange will do just fine.

Blood Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins:


Oven:  400

1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt (I used Kosher)
grated zest of 3 blood oranges (I was leary of this, only used 2, next time, I'm def. using 3)
1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2/3 c blood orange juice
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
6 oz. dark chocolate chunks or semi-sweet chips

Glaze:
1/4 c blood orange juice
1/4 c sugar

1) Preheat oven to 400.  Line muffin pan with paper liners- this yielded 12 large muffins (or 24 mini)

2) In large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and chocolate chips.

3) In small bowl, combine melted butter, blood orange juice, eggs, and vanilla.

4) Slowly add liquid mixture into dry ingredients, mix until just combined, some lumps are ok.

5) Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full.  Bake 20-25 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

6) Prepare glaze by whisking together sugar and blood orange juice.  Poke holes in tops of muffins and brush glaze on tops, letting it seep in.  Cool on wire rack.

It almost looks like a chocolate chip cookie, almost.