You absolutely have to try these mini muffins with chocolate, colomba glaze and candied orange peels! They’re super easy, ready in a few minutes and delicious. 😊 So they’re the ultimate in convenience, right? 😀

Ahhhh how much I enjoy messing about in the kitchen! And how I love upcycling recipes!

These days, as every year, post-Easter upcycling recipes are everywhere, especially those for recycling chocolate and colomba.

And of course I couldn’t resist — this year I made, ate and wrote my own colomba upcycling recipe! 🤩 (you saw it, right?).

Now. Okay, the colomba is fine, but… shall we talk about the colomba glaze? I’ve wondered about this since the times of the bars (remember them, right?): is it possible I’m the only one who has this strange, very strange, habit of removing the glaze from the colomba? (😀)

I don’t eat it — to me it’s too sweet, and all those white sugar crystals bother my teeth, so every time I remove them from my slice of colomba. With apologies to those who always tell me “but the glaze is the best part”. (And to think that when I was a child I used to say the same! 😂).

So. I end up with leftover glaze, and throwing it away is out of the question. What do you do with it?

The simplest thing! Use it in a new recipe in place of sugar! 😉

These mini muffins with chocolate, colomba glaze and candied orange peels are my contribution to the Light and Tasty column, today dedicated to upcycling recipes.

Sure, the colomba glaze isn’t exactly a light ingredient… but here’s the solution: reduce the muffin size! These mini muffins are so small that even someone on a diet can allow themselves one.

Oh come on… make it two! 🧁🧁😀

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mini muffins with chocolate, colomba glaze and candied orange peels

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Budget-friendly
Preparation time: 15 Minutes
Cooking time: 20 Minutes
Portions: 15
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Creative
Seasonality: All seasons, Easter

Ingredients

3/4 cup type 1 flour
1/2 cup milk kefir (or plain unsweetened yogurt)
1 egg
3 tbsp corn oil
1/3 cup colomba glaze (with crunchy sugar sprinkles)
1 oz chocolate (mixed milk and dark)
3/4 oz candied orange peel
Half teaspoon baking powder (3-4 g)

Tools

Muffin liners silicone
Muffin liners paper
Cooling rack

Steps

Here are the two Easter ingredients to recycle: the chocolate from Easter eggs, a mix of milk and dark, and the colomba glaze with crunchy sugar sprinkles.
Third ingredient: homemade candied orange peels. It’s not exactly a post-Easter recycle, but it’s still a zero-waste ingredient since it’s peel that is usually discarded — and it’s a real shame to throw them away because homemade candied peels are fabulous.
This time I didn’t slice them perfectly, but appearance wasn’t important — they were destined to be chopped into small pieces. 😉
Okay, we can start the very simple procedure.
In short: mix everything quickly with a spoon, and you’re done. 😉
More in detail:
In a bowl, whisk the whole egg and the oil, then add the kefir (or yogurt) and mix again.
Add the colomba glaze, broken into coarse crumbs. Mix to incorporate it into the batter.
Pour in the flour and the baking powder and stir briefly with the spoon.
👉 A fundamental rule when preparing muffins — and this applies to mini ones too — is not to overmix the flour, otherwise a strong gluten network can form and the muffins will become tough and chewy.
Prepare 15 small liners.
👉 I don’t have tiny silicone liners, so I nested small paper liners inside larger ones.
Spoon two teaspoons of batter (about 1 oz) into each liner.
Add small pieces of candied orange peel and little pieces of chocolate, pressing them as much as possible into the batter.
👉You can certainly fold them into the batter earlier, but I prefer to add them afterwards so I’m sure each portion gets the same amount of chocolate and candied peel.
👉If you don’t have candied peel, you can use grated orange zest or thinly sliced peel made with a vegetable peeler.
Bake at 356°F for about 20 minutes.
☝ I recommend you always adapt baking time to your oven — sometimes a little makes a difference. These liners I used are new and thicker than the ones I used before, and I think they slightly increased the baking time compared to thinner liners (20 minutes felt long for such small muffins, but the baking was perfect).
Let the mini muffins with chocolate, colomba glaze and candied orange peels cool on a rack for about half an hour before eating… if you can resist! 😀