Cooking with the Shaws - Orange Raisin Muffins

My mom has raved about these muffins of Bernice's. But she talked about how complicated they were as well. I figured that it's a muffin...how complicated can it be? I will say that they are every bit as delicious and tedious as advertised. Combine that with a recipe that is fairly vague and it was almost a recipe for disaster. I made these for a MOPS meeting so I was making them fairly early in the morning so they would be fresh and hot for the meeting. I really didn't think they would turn out and was already making plans to pick up some donuts on the way, but miraculously, they turned out just fine. I will say that I rewrote the directions for how I made them. The ingredients are the same but the recipe was kind of confusing.

Orange Raisin Muffins

1/2 c shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup raisins
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 orange
Powdered sugar

Zest or peel the rind from the orange. Juice orange and combine juice with enough powdered sugar to make a thick glaze.

Put orange zest, orange pulp, and raisins in a food processor. Process until smooth and paste-like.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until mealy. Combine buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. Add to flour mixture. Add orange raisin paste to batter and stir to combine.

*That's how I did it and it worked just fine, but in hind-sight, you could cream the shortening and sugar, add eggs, and vanilla. Combine flour and baking soda. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk. Add raisin orange paste. Mix to combine. *

Bake in greased muffin tins at 350 for 15 to 25 minutes (check at 15 minutes but may take up to 25 minutes) Spoon glaze over muffins while still warm. Bernice suggests to top with a cherry but I did not.

These were the most moist muffins and they were still just as good 2 days later....which I find is rare for a muffin.

Enjoy!