Recipe: Baking and experimenting with fresh citrus fruit
The color difference in the muffins is subtle but apparent. The red pigments in the blood orange juice turn color when combined in a mixture containing baking soda. Kathy Morrison
So much citrus, so little time while it’s fresh and in season. My Washington navel is loaded, but the produce bins are, too – with Cara Cara oranges and clementines and blood oranges. I try all of them each year, but occasionally the home supply gets to be an overload. Time to get out the juicer or bake something delicious.
I did both this week, choosing an orange cardamom muffin recipe to try. But I also wondered what they would be like if I used blood orange zest and juice. Well, the muffin recipe looked easy to divide, so I tried a side-by-side test: Half the batch got navel orange juice and zest, and the other got the gorgeous red juice and darker zest.
Scientists learn something even from a failed experiment, and I was no different. The upshot: The brilliant raspberry-red of the blood orange juice disappeared completely in baking, and the resulting muffin was an odd color, a blue tone that reminded me of a muffin I had made with fresh blueberries. Turns out the juice’s red-causing anthocyanin pigments (which also occur in raspberries) react with the baking soda and change color.
The navel orange muffins, meanwhile, stayed a beautiful orange. So if you want to show off your citrus, bake the navel orange muffins, and serve a glass of blood orange juice alongside. The recipe below is a full batch of the navel orange version.
A note on the spice: The cardamom almost disappears into this muffin, giving it additional flavor without overtaking the citrus. Cinnamon also could be used, but I might try some ground cloves next time for half the spice.
Orange spiced muffins
Makes 12
Ingredients:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk (plain yogurt also would work)
Grated zest of 1 orange (½ tablespoon or more)
¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cardamom or cinnamon
Crunchy or sparkling sugar, for topping, optional
Instructions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 12-cup muffin pan by spraying with oil or lining with cupcake papers.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, oil, milk, zest and orange juice.
In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cardamom. Stir in the wet mixture just until the flour is incorporated.
Fill the muffin cups evenly. Top each with crunchy sugar, if desired.
Bake 20 to 22 minutes, until golden brown. Allow muffins to cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan. Best served warm.
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Garden Checklist for week of May 12
Get your gardening chores and irrigation done early in the day before temperatures rise.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions. This heat will cause leafy greens and onions to flower; pick them before they bolt.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Got fruit trees? If you haven't already done so, thin orchard fruit such as apples, peaches, pears, pluots and plums before they grow too heavy, breaking branches or even splitting the tree. Leave the largest fruit on the branch, culling the smaller ones, and allow for 5 to 6 inches (or a hand's worth) between each fruit.
* Thin grape bunches, again leaving about 6 inches between them. For the remaining bunches, prune off the "tail" end, about the bottom third of the bunch, so that the plant's energy is concentrated in the fruit closest to the branch.
* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.
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