Marmalade Muffins

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I'm on a Pioneer Woman kick recently.  I've been a fan of her blog and I love the cookbok that a friend gave me.  I've noticed that the way her recipes are illustrated makes it easy for Big to help me in the kitchen.  She can follow along ("now we add the eggs") even though she can't read recipes yet. The only drawback to all this Pioneer Woman baking is that I have to make up for it with exercising . . . she's like Paula Deen - no restraint with the sticks of butter, heavy cream, and white flour.  At least the last recipe had some kale in it!

We made these marmalade mini muffins for brunch with friends and they were really delicious.  There's no actual marmalade in the recipe, but plenty of orange zest and an orange juice glaze.  I left a few plain without the sugary glaze and they were good that way too, but I think an orange vanilla icing might be really yummy.

Here's the link to her post with all the step by step photos.

Marmalade Muffins (makes 3 dozen mini muffins)
2 sticks Salted Butter, Softened
1 cup White Sugar
2 cups Flour
2 whole Eggs
1 cup Buttermilk
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 whole Oranges, Juiced And Zested
1 cup Brown Sugar (lightly Packed)

Cream together butter and white sugar in a mixing bowl. Add eggs, beat well, and mix in flour. Dissolve baking soda into buttermilk, then add to the rest of the batter along with the zest from both oranges. Mix well.

Grease and flour mini muffin pans (or spray with nonstick spray with flour). Fill cups 2/3 full. (This recipe yields 36 mini-muffins, or 3 tins.)

Bake at 375ºF for 12 to 17 minutes (or 20 to 25 minutes for regular-sized muffins), or until lightly browned.

In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar and juice from the freshly zested oranges. You should have about ½ cup. Mix well. Drizzle this glaze over the warm muffins. Remove muffins from the pan while still warm.