Blood Orange Chocolate Muffins with Blood Orange Glaze
Blood Orange Chocolate Muffins
There are few morning treats better than a pastry fresh out of the oven. Nothing makes me happier than cooking or baking for the ones I love, especially when I am lucky enough to have someone as special as Diane who can cook like a badass too, so I know the favor will be returned. Even pre-cappuccino hour baking is looked upon with pleasure. Our occasional treat of a Strawberry Crossover is a delight to make, but it takes a bit of time. Muffins on the other hand are quick and easy.
Video: Making the Blood Orange Chocolate Muffins with a Blood Orange Glaze
Most of the year we’ll have lemons at the ready from the garden and they make a delightful muffin. But right now blood oranges are ripening by the pounds, so with a little twist a blood orange muffin recipe was born.
And who doesn’t love chocolate? Either with a nice dark chocolate chip or with a few chops of the knife to break up a dark chocolate bar into chunks, it is a perfect addition. Gently mix them into the batter and send to the oven for baking.
Soon the kitchen air will be warm and sweet, have a beautiful coffee or cappuccino, and share the chocolate oozing muffins with everyone the house. Not a bad way to start the morning.
-Todd
Blood Orange Chocolate Muffins with Blood Orange Glaze
Ingredients
Muffin Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups (275g) all-purpose Flour
- 1 cup (200g) Sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons (6g) Baking Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon (2g) Baking Soda
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
- grated Zest of 2-3 Blood Oranges
- 1/3 cup (80ml) Vegetable Oil or 1/2 cup (115g or 1 stick) melted Butter
- 1/2 cup (120ml) fresh Blood Orange Juice
- 2 teaspoons (10ml) Vanilla Extract
- 2 Eggs
- 6 ounces (170g) Dark Chocolate Chips or Chunks
Blood Orange Glaze
- 1-2 Tablespoons (15-30ml) fresh Blood Orange Juice
- 3/4 cup (90g) powdered sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 375°F. Grease & flour muffin pan or line with baking cups.
- In a bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until well mixed.
- In a large bowl, combine oil or melted butter, blood orange zest, blood orange juice, vanilla extract and eggs. Mix until well combined. Fold in the dry mixture until just combined (important- do not overmix). Fold in the chocolate chips/chunks (for prettier muffins – reserve a handful of chocolate chips/chunks to place on top after filling the muffin cups). Divide between the muffin pan cups (a large cookie scoop works great for this step).(For bigger muffins, only fill 9-10 muffin pan cups, mounding the batter higher.)
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until lightly brown. Test with a toothpick to check center doneness (should come out clean unless it hits chocolate.) Allow to cool slightly.
- Make the glaze: Whisk together the blood orange juice and powdered sugar until smooth (for a thicker glaze use 1 Tablespoon blood orange juice – for a thinner but more blood orange flavor, use 2 Tablespoons of juice. You can also add fresh blood orange zest to the glaze to increase the blood orange flavor).
- Glaze the muffins. The cooler the muffins and longer the glaze sits, the firmer it becomes.
Video
Nutrition Information per Serving
Click Here for more More Blood Orange Recipes
More Blood Orange Ideas:
- Blood Orange Margarita – You must try this!
- Substitute blood orange for the Meyer Lemon in our Meyer Lemon Scones
- Smitten Kitchen’s Blood Orange Tart
This recipe was originally published in 2010 and re-published in 2021 with updated photos and new video.
oh my… these are the best muffins I have ever made. I used 132g sugar (50% of total flour weight minus 1tbsp as my oranges were super sweet) because of the families preferances. I also used a bit less than half the chocolate to really let the oranges shine through. they turned out INCREDIBLE. Needless to say, this recepie has been saved, printed, and is now safely tucked away in my recepie book. this is how I’ll use up all 6kg of blood oranges I recently managed to get my hands on! I would definitely recomend, 11/10!!!!!!
Thanks Nicola for all the feedback. And we’re so happy you enjoyed the muffins and made great use of your big supply of blood oranges!
These were absolutely amazing. They would be great for a special occasion. Made these for my husband, and I made myself Keto muffins with the same basic idea. They were amazing also!
Thanks Joyce! So happy you enjoyed the recipe with the adjustments you made.
Aside from looking gorgeous… they’re a super delicious muffin. I really love wowing my family with these.
Hey just a quick note. Your recipe is delicious. When you scale up or down though the grams does not change with the recipe. It is stuck on what you use for 12 muffins. Thanks!
Your work is so full beautiful and inspiring. Made these with some blood oranges I found at the farmers market and used half the amount of chocolate chips. Turned out great and loved the blue-ish color too!
I made these three days ago. They are fantastic.
I love the combination of chocolate and orange. In these muffins both flavors come through loud and clear as well as complimenting each other beautifully.
I used oil instead of butter on the assumption that they would be moister and therefore last longer. My hunch paid off. They are just as tasty today as they were fresh out of the oven.
Mine were green colored. An internet search suggested that it is the result of the combination of the chemical that gives blood oranges their lovely color and baking soda.
These were tasty but mine came out blue as well. I believe it is due to the deep red color of my blood oranges.
I made these for breakfast last week and it was the first time I had ever tried a blood orange. Loved them!
I just made these with oranges (cos that’s what i had) and they are incredible. I halved the recipe and got 5 muffins. Hope I can store them for 2-3 days (don’t want to eat all 5 in one day ;).
Thanks for such an easy and delicious muffin recipe.
Hi 🙂
I fell in love just when I saw these muffins. Really.
In Poland we don’t have blood oranges (or even regular oranges, lemons… We have to import them. That is very very sad but climate is too cold) so when I saw today at local market “Sicilian oranges” I had to buy them. Now ingredients are waiting in two bowls. I am sticky like caramels because every orange has to be ‘examined’ by me and my taste buds. AMAZING! You made me green with envy with your oranges – they are surely much better than bought in market 🙂
These are DELICIOUS!!!!
Thank you for the fast response! I will definitely tell u guys how the muffins come out, thanks again 🙂
The recipe is GREAT, did’nt need to alter it. Muffins came out moist and tender. Thanks a lot!
I just love your blog! and your images STUNNING! I’m planning to make this recipe but since I like moist soft muffins I was wondering if the liquid ingredients are enough to make them fluffy or do I need to add more oj/eggs or maybe buttermilk. Thanks for the advice!
Thanks for the sweet compliments!
The ratio for these muffins creates the perfect texture for us so we haven’t deviated from it. A key to fluffiness is when adding the liquid ingredients to the sifted dry ingredients, is to barely mix until combined. The less you can mix the better. We always mix at this point by hand, so we have better control and precision.
If you play with the recipe, we’d love to hear how the changes come out!
Todd
I read about you guys in the Sunset magazine and I love this blog! The pictures are fantastic and I marked several recipes. I made these muffins today and they were delicious…but my batter was blue and the muffins are blue inside too. Do you have any idea how that happened and your muffins are just white?
Hi Carrie,
Welcome. Thank you so much for the sweet compliments.
Blue? We’ve never had that happen. It always gets a tinge pinkish from our blood oranges and I can’t think of anything which would cause that. Sorry we can’t be of more help. Maybe another reader will have some experience in regards to this. At least they were tasty!
T & D
Yes, they are delicious! Thanks for the idea!
I have made these a few times now and the latest batch turned blue too! Definitely caught me by surprise. Maybe because the blood oranges I used today were particularly dark?
Yes, the colors in blood oranges vary so much, everything from a light orange to red to a deep red. There are no two blood oranges that have the same color. Well, not at least that we’ve seen from our trees. Glad you’re enjoying the muffins!
blood orange in a chocolate muffin these look great :O)