Chinese New Year Mandarin Orange Muffins

Cooking With Kids

Chinese New Year is tomorrow and it is the most important Chinese holiday of the year. To celebrate the event with my Nanny Kids I made these absolutely delicious muffins. To the Chinese, oranges and tangerines represent wealth, luck, and abundant happiness. Due to the bright orange color, mandarin oranges are used in the ceremony to symbolize the sun and to represent the fresh start of a new year. I usually yield 10 muffins from this recipe. They are very soft and moist so I let the kids use a fork when eating them. They are so delicious. The kids will ask for them over and over again.

You Will Need:

1/2 C Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Allspice
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 C Sugar
1/3 C Margarine or Butter Flavored Shortening
1 Egg, beaten
1- 10 oz Can of Mandarin Oranges, drained (reserve juice)
10 Mandarin Oranges (save for decoration)
1/4 C Mandarin Orange Juice, (reserve from can)
2 T Melted Butter
1/4 C Cinnamon and Sugar Topping

What to Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners. I didn’t have cupcake liners so I greased and floured the muffin tins.

2. Sift dry ingredients together.

3. Add 1/3 C margarine or butter flavored shortening, cut in until the mix crumbles.

4. Add one beaten egg and 1/4 cup reserved juice from the mandarin oranges. Mix just until moistened. Do not over mix to avoid tough muffins.

5. Separate 12 mandarin oranges and keep for later. Fold in the rest of the mandarin oranges to batter.

6. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full with batter.

7. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

8. Once cool dip muffin tops in melted butter and cinnamon sugar mixture.

9. Put one mandarin orange on top of each muffin.