Blood Orange and Dark Chocolate Chip Muffins

Blood oranges are my current obsession.  My wonderful husband picked some up for me the other day, and I immediately decided I wanted to bake something starring them. The following recipe was adapted from Mountain Mama Cooks.  I changed a few ingredients to increase the nutritional stats and decrease the unhealthy fats.  They came out soft and fluffy, and just the perfect amount of sweet.

Ingredients (makes 12 standard sized muffins):

• 1 cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 tbsp. Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1/4 c. Egg Substitute (I use Better n' Eggs)
• 1/2 c. Coconut Oil, melted (cold-pressed, extra virgin!)
• Zest of 2 blood oranges, separated
• 1/2 cup Freshly Squeezed Blood Orange Juice
• 1/4 cup Skim Milk (I used Lactaid this time, but I usually use So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk)
• 1 tbsp. Nonfat, Plain Greek Yogurt
• 2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 cup Dark Chocolate Chips (I used Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chips)
• 1 Tbsp Coarse Sugar

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners
• In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, and salt
• In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, egg substitute, coconut oil, zest from one orange, orange juice, milk, greek yogurt, and vanilla until well combined
• Add flour mixture to egg/sugar mixture and stir until just combined
• Fold in chocolate chips
• Evenly divide the batter in the 12 muffin cups
• In a small dish, combine the coarse sugar with the zest from the other orange, and rub the zest and sugar together in your ingers to release the oils in the zest and mix into the sugar
• Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with the zest/sugar mixture
• Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean