Zesty Orange

The other night, I made a Thai stir fry that called for an orange. I sliced off the orange rind and left it on the counter. My daughter decided to make a dinner of orange zest for her dolls. She retrieved our zester from the drawer and proceeded to carefully shave the orange skin into confetti. The dolls had a fine dinner.

As I was cleaning up, I thought, why waste the zest? All that flavor just sitting there waiting to be put in something.

I pulled out my cookbooks and found a few recipes for orange cake, but nothing that was quick, easy and for which I had all the ingredients. Then I found a recipe for orange muffins. It was perfect.

I mixed the ingredients, popped it in the oven and in about 20 minutes, viola, orange muffins. They tasted fantastic, like eating a glass of orange juice, only richer.

Irony of ironies, my daughter, who did all the heavy lifting by zesting the orange, didn't like them.

Here's the recipe:

Mix two cups all-purpose flour with three tablespoons sugar, one tablespoon orange zest, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 3 teaspoons baking powder. Melt 4 teaspoons of butter and let cool. Add butter to 3/4 cup of milk, one egg and beat. Add to dry mixture plus 1/4 cup orange juice. Stir 12 to 15 times until just mixed. Do not over stir. Put in a 12 cup muffin tin and bake at 425 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.