December 5, 2020
Chocolate Orange Muffins!
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Deliciously soft, heavenly and yummy chocolate orange muffins – full of chocolate orange chunks!
Muffins
I feel like over my years of blogging, I have neglected the good ol’ muffin far too much. I have a few delicious recipes on here such as my biscoff muffins that I uploaded this year, and then my older muffin recipes such as my raspberry and white chocolate muffins, which has been on my blog for over five years!
I don’t know why I neglect muffin recipes so much, because I utterly adore them! They’re so similar to cupcakes, but usually without the same toppings as cupcakes. They are perfect with a mug of tea, or a hot chocolate… or when you are out on a coffee date.
Chocolate orange muffins
As it is the festive season, and because I simply cannot resist… I thought it was time for a chocolate orange muffin recipe! Let’s be honest though, with SO MANY OF YOU requesting this recipe, I thought it was about time anyway!!
So I have a various few methods for making muffins on my blog, and some people prefer the butter method, some people prefer the oil method. Because my biscoff muffins used the oil method, I thought I would make this version with butter. Both are delicious!
Cupcakes vs muffins
So.. this recipe is different when it comes to a cupcake. Cupcakes usually have equal parts flour, butter, sugar and eggs whereas this sort of recipe the ratios are different, milk is added, and the resulting texture is just the best and most delicious thing.
If you want to make these with oil, follow the recipe for the biscoff muffins, but use chocolate orange chunks, add the orange flavouring, and swap out 25g of flour for cocoa powder! But if you aren’t fussed, I do adore the recipe below and think it’s utterly delicious!
Chocolate sponge
For these muffins I use unsalted butter with light brown sugar (because they are chocolate themed, the brown sugar is the best flavour), eggs, self raising flour, cocoa powder, salt, whole milk and orange extract/zest.
Then, you add in the chunks of chocolate! I, of course, use terry’s chocolate orange, but you can use any chocolate orange themed chocolate you want! I always like to theme my bakes, but I am fully aware that not all brands of things are available everywhere!
Muffin cases
I love using tulip muffin cases when it comes to muffins, as they look the best, and they are big enough! I use these beautiful kraft coloured ones in this recipe, but honestly any work! If you want to use cupcake cases however, you may may more than 12 muffins.
You want to make sure that the cases are only 2/3 full, as the muffins will rise, and you definitely don’t want them overflowing and wasting all the yummy muffin goodness!
Topping and adaptations
For the topping I simply melted a small amount of chocolate and added a chocolate orange segment to the top – you can do this, or you can leave it off, or you can do something completely different!
If you wanted to try a stuffed muffin recipe, you can freeze a chocolate spread, or a chocolate orange ganache mix and plopping the frozen dollop into the muffin before baking – so gooey, so good! I hope you love this recipe as much as I do! Enjoy! x
Chocolate Orange Muffins
Ingredients
Muffins
- 115 g unsalted butter
- 250 g light brown soft sugar/caster sugar
- 2 medium eggs
- 225 g self raising flour
- 25 g cocoa powder
- Pinch of salt
- 125 ml whole milk
- 1 tsp orange extract (or zest of 1 large orange)
- 300 g chocolate orange chocolate (chopped)
Topping
- 100 g chocolate (melted)
- 12 chocolate orange segments
Instructions
Muffins
- Preheat your oven to 190ºC/170ºC fan and get your 12 muffin cases ready - I like to use tulip style muffin cases.
- Beat the unsalted butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add each egg, beating well each time.
- Add the self raising flour, cocoa powder and salt to the mixture, and beat again.
- Finally, pour in the milk and orange extract beat again. Try not to over beat the mixture!
- Fold through the chunks of chocolate, and split evenly between the cases.
- Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes until they are baked through and springy to touch.
- Leave to cool fully.
Decoration
- Melt the chocolate, and spoon a little onto the top of each muffin
- Press a chocolate orange segment onto the top, and leave to set.
Notes
- These muffins are best served fresh and warm, but will last for three days!
- I bake into this muffin tray!
- I used these muffin cases for this bake!
- You can leave out the orange extract or zest and using plain chocolate if you don't want chocolate orange themed, or swap the orange to mint extract and swap the chocolate to minty chocolate for a chocolate mint muffin!
ENJOY!
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J x
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Can you freeze these
Yes you can!
These muffins taste fab. The only problem I have is that there was too much batter and i ended up overfilling the cases, instead of rising up they came out the top and spread like halos. Very crumbly and not holding shape, stuck to the paper cases too.
Hiya – this sounds like the muffin cases are too small – we use tulip ones which are bigger than others that shops sell.
These chocolate orange muffins were amazing
They had a lovely taste , the only thing was there a bit of oil on the muffin cases i don’t know if it was from the chocolate , but otherwise great.
Hi, will it change the taste of the muffins if I use dark orange chocolate in the recipe? Thanks in advance.
Hi Jane! Fab recipe as always! I just wondered, would I be able to use choc orange spread instead of the chocolate chunks?
Thank you!
Hiya! You could try freezing lumps of the spread and putting it in before baking! Hope this helps! x
I really enjoy them,they were really nice,but one thing I found it they crumble to quick,,what did I do wrong?
I’m not sure what I did wrong but they sunk really badly in the middle when cooling, to the point there was a gaping hole, tried putting them back in the oven but they’d already sunk so beyond repair
Hiya! Jane recommends never putting a bake back in the oven once cooled! However they probably sank because they were underbaked! Hope this helps x
These are great. However I did find a lot of the mixture stuck to the cases how can I prevent this happening?
Fantastic Recipe!
First time trying them, they are Light as a feather, beautifully moist and taste absolutely delicious! Thank you for sharing! I’ve just got your book, so I’m excited to be trying out more of your fabulous recipes 👌👩🍳
Can you use buttermilk and would you use the same amount as the whole milk? Thanks
Hello! There is no need to use butter milk xx
My husband adores these and asks me to make them all the time.
Is it possible to freeze them so I can always have some ready?
Thank you!
Ah yay!! And yes! x
Hi Jane,
These are amazing! Just wondering if you had a chocolate orange ganache recipe please as it sounds amazing to have that in the middle but can’t find one on the website?
Many thanks
hi, Jane! if I wanted to make these just milk chocolate muffins would I use vanilla extract instead of orange or just leave it out completely? thank you! 🙂
Yes you can either leave it out, or use vanilla as that would be a nice flavour!
Hi,
How would I go about making an eggless version of these? I usually use a whole milk and apple cider vinegar mixture as egg substitute and then add that in alternately with the flour mixture but not sure if the fact there is already whole milk in this recipe would change anything?
Thank you!
I’m not certain to be honest – there are many different egg replacers but I haven’t tested this recipe eggless before. x
Hi Jane
Thanks for the response. I’ve tried an egg replacer in the past which worked well for cookies but not cakes. In the end I stuck to your recipe but also added an additional 125ml whole milk mixed with 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. It worked well! Although didn’t rise as much they still came out great. Thanks for your recipes they are amazing!!
Hi Jane,
I can’t wait to try out this recipe this weekend! I’ve got a new stand mixer to try – would it be best to use the beater attachment or whisk for this recipe?
Thank you.
Beater – a whisk is only used for cream/meringue/cheesecake etc – a beater is used for cake mixes, cookie doughs etc!
Beautiful recipe, worked perfectly. I have yet to bake something of yours that has failed! Thank you for sharing your beautiful recipes ✨
All the recipes I have tried out from jane have usually worked. This one turned out more like a brownie in a muffin case. Still delicious…but no muffin dome shaped top.
Followed the recipe and instruction for oven temp to a tee.
That sounds like they worked perfectly to me – mine didn’t have massive ‘muffin tops’.
These were great and easy to make! However some of my chocolate was a little burnt, could this be that I I chopped up the chocolate orange up too small?!
It can be – but because of the orange oil in the chocolate that can also cause it a little – bigger chunks should prevent that yes! x
I made these and they were delicious!!!! I have one question, I have made the biscoff muffins and these ones from you now but both times I’ve made them, the top of the muffins form a hard crust. I was wondering if you had any tips on how I could avoid this ? Thankyou so much 🙂
It may be worth lowering the temp by 20c and baking for slightly longer! But muffins do often have a harder top x
Can you double this to make jumbo muffins?
Thanks.
I’m sure you can, but they are pretty big already so maybe just use another half of the recipe? x
Used all three terrys chocolate orange flavours. Followed the recipe but they wernt cooking in the middle? Turned the oven down and put back in for an extra 5 minutes and now there over cooked 🙁
Any recommendations on how to avoid this next time as still really want to make these but better x
They were likely baked fine (all things continue to bake whilst cooling) so the extra time is what did it! x
Thanks for sharing, these look lovely 🙂
Delicious muffins! Followed the recipe to the T and they came out perfectly. One thing I did change (but not measurements) was I made up 300g of chocolate orange chunks from all three flavoured chocolate oranges!
I made these muffins and they are delicious! Everyone has commented on how amazing they taste and look.
Delicious, moist muffins! And the best flavour 😋
Absolutely delish!! And so easy to follow!
I made these with regular chocolate chips, substituting vanilla for the orange as my husband dies t like choc orange. They are delicious. I’m going to make the choc orange version for my sons nursery staff next week
Absolutely amazing. Love your recipes!
Fantastic I made the choc orange muffins today they taste amazing 🤩 🙌
amazing thank you so much x
Jane, can I add milk chocolate instead of plain chocolate to decorate the muffins?
You can use any chocolate you want to decorate – I used milk!
these look amazing! cannot wait to try them! what muffin tin would you recommend? and also do you have a recipe for mint chocolate muffins? x
I’ve added a link to the notes about the tray and mentioned how to change it to mint! x