Orange Blueberry Corn muffins

Freshly baked blueberry corn muffins and a tall glass of orange juice was always one of my mothers go-to weekend breakfasts when I was child. Sometimes we made them together in the mornings, sometimes I sat huddled by the warm heater vent while she made them, and sometimes I woke to the scent of baking blueberries filling the house. They were a great weekend breakfast, quick to make, consumable at the table with some butter or in the car, plain, on our way to some adventure.

 

While I was in Ohio last week we made several batches of blueberry corn muffins throughout the trip. The morning we left Cleveland for Hocking Hills in Southern Ohio, we made a batch to bring along in the car.

Hocking Hills, now simply called Hocking by most of my mothers family, is a lovely place of cliffs and trees, and another aunt and uncle have a vacation home there, though you're more likely to find them there than their normal home up in Cleveland. We spent a night there en route to West Virginia, and I climbed trees, hiked along the narrow paths my cousins children of have forged all over the cliffs, and caught up on family gossip. 

When we returned from roaming through Appalachia we made another batch of blueberry corn muffins, and it was then that I had the idea to make orange juice blueberry corn muffins. 

Orange juice blueberry muffins. It was bound to work- I already make orange juice cupcakes (swap the milk in the directions on the yellow cake mix box with orange juice), so I knew Orange Juice worked in baking. I figured why not.

I'm lactose intolerant and as a child my mother worried I wouldn't get enough calcium, so when orange juice with added calcium became a thing she bought it as fast as I could drink it. I had a glass of orange juice every morning of my entire k-12 school career, I am pretty sure.

Sometimes I drank it sitting by the kitchen heater vent (seriously, I loved that heater vent) on cold winter mornings. The warm air and delicious juice distracting me from the cold march down the street through the Ohio lake effect snow to school. 

The orange juice in these muffins makes them a little sweet, a touch tangy, and lends an overall fruitiness to the batter. I used orange juice with pulp, so don't worry about needing to get pulp free, there were no little orange bits discernible in my muffins.

Just sweet, delicious breakfast-y goodness. These are lovely, they would be the perfect compliment to a brunch or breakfast party, and would also be perfect at a kids birthday party or other afternoon event. Or they're great for breakfast on the weekends, with a tall glass of orange juice (or a cup of coffee), feel free to eat one while huddled in front of a running heater vent, for full effect.

Orange Blueberry Corn Muffins

1 1/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour


1/2 Cup Cornmeal


1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1 Tablespoon Baking Powder


1 Cup Orange Juice


1/2 Cup Butter, melted


1 Egg, beaten 

1 Cup Blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 Degrees Fahrenheit, if using a metal muffin tin grease or line with paper muffin liners. Or use silicone muffin liners like me. Remove orange juice from refrigerator to bring to room temperature.

Whisk flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder together until well combined in a large bowl. Dredge blueberries in the mixture (add them and mix them around so they're all well covered in flour and spread out).

In a smaller bowl, combine melted butter, the egg, and the orange juice. If your orange juice is still cold, microwave it for about 20 seconds or heat it over the stove a moment until it's lukewarm. Cold orange juice can re-solidify the butter. Whisk wet ingredients until well mixed. 

Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until just combined. Mix until there is no dry mix left, but do not over mix. 

Spoon into the muffin tins. In my mothers metal tin this made 12 muffins, but my silicone ones must be smaller because it made 15 of those. 

Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until risen and cooked through. Allow muffins 5-10 minutes to cool before removing from the tin or liners. 

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