Mulberry & Orange Flower Water Muffins

Well, the snow has been falling heavily all day and it looks like Juno the dog and I are snowbound. As soon as the city 'plows' the street, the driveway will be blocked with snow 3 feet high. I'm not sure why the city feels that scraping snow from the road into piles to block driveways is a good idea, but it does seem to be our local snow plan.

So, what's there to do other than watch the Olympics and cook? Unfortunately, there was no pre-snow run for supplies, so what we have is all we are going to have.

While looking for some Australian spices for breakfast, I noticed a small bottle of Orange Flower Water that I had purchased and never used. Since flower waters are used in baking, it made me think of muffins, which, along with bread, it pretty much the only thing I ever bake. I have blueberries in the freezer, but the orange flower water is from Lebanon and I remembered that I had dried white mulberries from Turkey in the pantry.

White mulberries are an interesting fruit. The dried fruits look like small pine cones and have a mildly sweet flavor somewhat between a raisin and a fig. They have very tiny seeds which give a very small bit of crunch. They have more protein than most fruits, and also offer anti-oxidants, vitamin C, and iron. And taste great.

The basic muffin recipe I use, from Tae, uses 1/3 c oil in it. I had some unsweetened applesauce in the pantry as well, so decided to substitute that for the oil.

Orange Flower Water is amazingly fragrant. These muffins smell amazing while you mix them, amazing while you bake them, and best of all, amazing while you eat them. The flavor is absolutely delicious and probably different from your run-of-the-mill muffin you normally make. I'm not a fan of icing, so I had mine with a squirt of Soyatoo vegan 'whipped cream'.

You can get white mulberries from Barry Farms, and the orange flower water from The Spice House.

Mulberry & Orange Flower Water Muffins

1 1/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 t cinnamon
3/4 c sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 c dried white mulberries

3/4 c soy milk
2 t vinegar
1/2c applesauce
1 T orange flower water


Preheat oven to 350F

Spray a 12 muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Combine dry ingredients
Combine wet ingredients
Mix wet ingredients into dry just until it is combined, then pour into cups. Cups will be about 3/4 full.

Bake 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Check after 20 minutes.