I’m sure you have all seen the mini muffin “donut” craze on blogs already.  I have been wanting to try it out and have several ideas.  This particular muffin wasn’t even on my radar, but as I headed up to the mountains with the boys I knew I wanted to try something.  I was first thinking something zucchini since it is plentiful in the garden right now.  I brought up several zucchini with us, but alas, I have eaten most of them already!

Then I decided I wanted to go back to this orange coconut chocolate flavor combination, as posted previously in this recipe.  I brought my mini muffin pans with me and figured these would be easy enough.  I was right!!

Growing up my mom made a wonderful cookie that had either orange juice or lemonade concentrate on top and sprinkled with sugar.  It was a wonderful sugar cookie with a great juice flavor.  The problem, it was delicate and really needed to be eaten the day they were made and had to be stored in a single layer.

Most mini muffin “donuts” are rolled in butter and then in sugar, cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar etc.  It’s isn’t necessarily that I was trying to be healthy by skipping all the butter, because frankly it does sound delicious!  Instead, I wanted to enhance the orange flavor.

My mind started taking over and the results were these delicious mini muffins.  The muffin itself has wonderful orange zest, coconut yogurt as well as shredded coconut and mini chocolate chips.  I truly do love this flavor profile.   It is flexible too, if you can’t find coconut yogurt use plain and add coconut extract or use coconut milk instead of cow’s milk.  I prefer to use finely shredded organic coconut, but if you use sweetened coconut you might want to reduce the sugar a little.

To minimize the messy factor I only dipped the tops in the orange juice concentrate and sugar.  You could certainly dip the entire muffin if you want.  Or maybe roll them in toasted coconut, so many possibilities.

I made these little gems while Jack and Ewan were at art camp in the morning.  Sean sampled and declared them the best muffins ever!  I tried one and they truly are wonderful.  I packed them up for our picnic at the park before we headed to the pool.  Ah, life up here is fun!  This biggest challenge, lighting for photos.  The house is in the woods so I don’t exactly have much natural light to work with.  If the pictures aren’t the best, just imagine how tasty they are anyway!

Orange Coconut Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins
1 c. flour
1 c. white whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/2 c. coconut yogurt
1/2 c. milk
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
Zest of one orange
3/4 c. shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 c. mini chocolate chips
For dipping
1/3 c. orange juice concentrate, thawed
3/4 c. sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray mini muffin pans. Sift together the flours, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In a medium bowl whisk together the butter, yogurt, milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla and orange zest. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and gently mix, being careful not to over mix. Fold in the coconut and chocolate chips. Pour in prepared muffin pans and bake for 15-17 minutes.

Allow the muffins to cool for about five minutes in the pans. Then dip the tops in the orange juice concentrate, shake off any excess liquid and dip in sugar.

Yields 3 dozen