Ingredients for Orange Cardamom Muffins
The ingredients for these orange cardamom muffins are pretty basic muffin ingredients. I used orange juice and the orange zest with the wet ingredients. These muffins have a strong, sweet, and refreshing orange flavor. Instead of throwing away your sourdough starter discard, you can use it in a delicious muffin recipe like this. Here’s what you’ll need for the recipe:
Dry Ingredients:
- All-purpose flour
- Organic Sugar (any kind will do, even coconut sugar)
- Baking soda
- Salt
- organic Corn starch
- Orange zest
- Cardamom, ground
Wet Ingredients:
- grass-fed butter (or vegan butter)
- organic pastured eggs (or vegan egg replacer equaling two eggs)
- sourdough starter
- 1 Ripe banana, mashed
- Vanilla extract
- grass-fed whole milk (or any dairy-free milk)
- Orange juice
Glaze
- Orange Juice
- Powdered Sugar
Apple Cardamom Muffins Option
If you aren’t a huge fan of orange, but you like apple, you can change up this recipe a little bit. To make these into apple cardamom muffins, simply sub the orange juice for apple juice!
Using Sourdough Discard to Make Cardamom Muffins
It’s so easy to incorporate sourdough starter into muffin recipes. Simply add the sourdough starter to the wet ingredients and combine! It’s very important to combine all the wet ingredients first and separately combine all the dry ingredients. Then, fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until it’s all just combined. Do not over mix this muffin batter, or the muffins will be too chewy and dense. Usually, it takes me about 7 folds to get everything evenly combined. The muffin batter will be very thick.
Sourdough Starter Discard Orange Cardamom Muffins
Since this is a sourdough starter discard recipe, you may be wondering what kind of sourdough stater I use. I mainly keep a Sprouted Rye Sourdough Starter. We also have an Easy Sourdough Starter Recipe with Sourdough Starter Feeding Instructions you can check out!
If I need to feed my starter, but I don’t plan on spending the whole day baking a loaf of bread, I like to use the discard in fun recipes like this. Jon and I both love these muffins for a quick grab and go breakfast or for an evening sweet treat.
Other Sourdough Recipes to Try
- Simple Sourdough Carrot Cake Banana Bread
- Blueberry Sourdough Bagels
- How to Bake Sourdough Discard Banana Nut Muffins
Orange Cardamom Muffins with Sourdough Discard
These sourdough orange cardamom muffins are so flavorful, perfectly sweet, and are great for an easy breakfast on the go. This recipe also has an option for apple cardamom muffins.
- Prep: 15 minutes
- Cook: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons orange zest
- 1 to 2 teaspoons cardamom
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Wet Ingredients
- 1/2 cup grass-fed butter
- 1/2 cup sourdough starter
- 1 ripe banana, mashed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 2 tablespoons orange juice
- 2 eggs
Glaze
- 1 tablespoon orange juice
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350° F.
- Line a muffin tin with paper liners, or grease the tin with a bit of oil.
- In a medium-large mixing bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients.
- In a separate bowl, mash the ripe banana. Then add in the remaining wet ingredients with the banana. Whisk until just combined.
- Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until everything is just combined. Do not over mix. The batter should be thick.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin tin.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes.
- Allow cooling for about 45 minutes
- Mix icing, and drizzle it on top the muffins.
Notes
- you can evenly substitute the milk, eggs, and butter for vegan alternatives to make these muffins vegan.
- to make these apple cardamom muffins, sub the orange juice for apple juice.
Would these be okay to long ferment at some point? If so where in the recipe? Thanks 🙂
They should be. I don’t usually long ferment muffins, but other bakers have told me they refrigerate theirs after they put all the batter in the muffin tin with good results.
Interesting, With my very little knowledge of sourdough I had thought it would be better for nutrient absorption to long ferment most doughs/breads etc. What’s your opinion?
Yeah, I long ferment all of my sourdough breads… It’s great for digestibility. But discard recipes, like muffins, biscuits or crackers do not have to be long fermented, they can be but it’s not required.
That’s a great tip Thank you for the quick response 🙂 Looking forward to making these with my girls this afternoon.
I made this today following the baking temperature and timing. but the muffins turn out to be hard on the outside. May be I had to reduce time and temperature. The taste it self is so nice and smells gooood. I will reduce the sugar on my 2nd attempt. Thank you for sharing🙏
Do you think this could work with your gluten free starter? I am getting ready to give the GF starter a try and was looking for discard recipes.
maybe, but I’ve never made it with GF starter or GF flour so I’m not sure.
I made these GF & they turned out so good! Will definitely be making these again. Delicious!
Oh I’m so glad they worked out with GF flour! thanks for trying the recipe 🙂
I’ve made these muffins 3 times now. Everyone I’ve shared them with say they’re absolutely delicious. What a wonderful way to use my sourdough discard!
Thank you
I’m happy to hear the muffins were a hit!
What does the cornstarch add? I prefer not to use this ingredient.
It gives the muffins a slightly lighter texture. You can leave it out though, the muffins will still come out good.