Canada Day Muffins

Bake your own delicious orange berry muffins with local berries or cranberries. For a fun family experience, take the kids out to pick berries! 

​I love picking berries. My Canada Day muffins had red currants from my garden, but I've also used salmonberries (almost finished now), huckleberries (now in season), and blackberries (starting to ripen) from the forest. A bit tart is perfect. You can freeze a batch of berries ahead of time and add them to the batter frozen. 

Yield: 24 muffins, or two 9" x 5" loaves. 

You'll need:

• 4 cups flour (I include about a quarter cup of whole wheat flour)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• grated rind of two large organic oranges 
• 1 1/3 cup fresh orange juice 
• 4 eggs or flax eggs (for flax, use 1/4 cup ground flax seed, 3/4 cup warm water, whisk and let thicken in fridge)
• 3/4 canola oil or melted butter
• 2 ½ cups berries 
• 1 cup pecan halves, toasted and chopped 

Steps: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare muffin tins with paper or parchment cups, or butter and lightly flour. This also works well as loaves, using two 9" x 5" loaf pans. 
2. Toast pecans at 300 degrees F. for five minutes. Cool on a plate, then chop.  
3. Prepare flax eggs if using. (A delicious vegan variation! I grind flax seeds in a coffee grinder, but you can buy them pre-ground). 
4. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into large mixing bowl.
5. Grate the orange rind and stir it into the flour.  
6. Juice the oranges, if using fresh juice.  
7. Melt butter if using, or measure oil, then combine it with eggs and juice. Make a well in the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients until just blended. 
8. Fold in berries and nuts, stirring until just blended. 
9. Transfer to muffin cups or loaf pans, smoothing the top. 
10. Bake about 25 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the centre, at the highest point of the muffin or loaf, comes up clean. If baking loaves, bake 45-50 minutes. 
11. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then transfer muffins or bread to wire rack to cool completely. Remove parchment if using. 

Adapted from "Cranberry Orange Bread," Martha Day, Complete Baking (1999, 2004: Hermes House, London). 

Enjoy! I've included a couple of photos of some local berries you might like to pick with the kids. 

- Irene Plett

Topics: Recipes, baking, muffins, bread, sweets, berries, nature

Salmonberries from the forest 

Huckleberries from the forest