Your favourite little teapot (reminder: that’s me!) is coming at you this week with another tea-infused recipe, this time for these spiced orange muffins!
Now, I know these don’t really sound like they’re seasonally appropriate, but hear me out. The tea used for it is called Island Fire and it’s an iced tea inspired by relaxing on your own personal oasis. The tea includes papaya, pineapple, orange peel, cinnamon, apple, rosehips, rose petals, cornflower petals, and cranberry. When I made this tea to try it, I really picked up on the cinnamon flavour and a hint of orange.
When I was trying to think of what recipe to make with it, I struggled. Macarons? Already done that. Scones? Also already done. This didn’t feel like the sort of tea I wanted to turn into a cookie so that was out too. Although thinking about it, that would also have been delicious.
Cupcakes were out too because I don’t really like frosting, so I settled on a trusty muffin.
Spiced Orange Muffins
With the cinnamon and orange being the flavours I picked up on in the tea, I decided those should be the focal point of the muffins. We go about this two ways.
First, infuse the butter with some of the tea. We do this by melting the butter with the tea and let it sit until it’s cool before straining the tea.
We also add some ground cinnamon and orange zest. This really brings the spicy tropical flavours home. Spiced orange muffins aren’t complete without these two ingredients.
Typically I like to use oil for muffins instead of butter, but for infusing purposes, we needed the butter this time. The muffins are still soft and fluffy, just how we like them!
Other than that, the recipe is pretty standard. We have our dry ingredients and our wet ingredients. I like to use sour cream for the best-textured muffin you could ask for.
If you want the perfect morning muffin, I’m pretty sure this is it. The orange and spice from the cinnamon is subtle, yet noticeable enough to know exactly what you’re eating. These might just break my weekend brunch rotation.
Spiced Orange Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- Zest of 1/2 large orange
- 10 tbsp. unsalted butter
- 1 tbsp. Island Fire tea
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
Directions
- Step 1 Put the butter and tea in a small saucepan and heat until the butter is melted. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool completely. Once the butter is cool, strain the tea out, leaving just the melted butter. Set aside.
- Step 2 Preheat oven to 375°F and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
- Step 3 In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- Step 4 In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, and zest until pale yellow in colour. While whisking, slowly drizzle in the melted butter, then add the vanilla extract, and sour cream
- Step 5 mix well. Gently fold in the flour mixture, being careful not to overmix.
- Step 6 Divide the batter among the 12 cupcake liners if making jumbo muffins, or 18 cupcake liners if making normal sized muffins. Bake for 22-28 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Turn out onto a towel to cool completely.
