It’s citrus season. Orange trees throughout the Waikato are at full capacity.
Backyards teeming with amber citrus globes, which hang like ornaments from their well shaped limbs, are sheepishly ignored.
EAT ‘EM FOLKS! If you can’t, give them to someone who will, or make muffins.
Remember: There’s no place for food waste. If you can’t eat all of your crop, with or without the help of your neighbours, please give your local school a call and drop around a bag or two. The wonderful folk at Community Fruit Harvesting may even be able to send a team over to harvest the fruit for you, convert it into something delicious for those in need – and the food cycle is complete.
I digress. Back to muffins.
Here’s a new recipe using the juice and zest, with a little help from some winter rhubarb.
Of the crazy number of fruit trees in our garden we have plenty of citrus (a bitter orange known as Flying Dragon yes, mandarin yes, grapefruit yes, lemon yes, lime yes) but not a single regular orange. So when a friendly out-of-town neighbour invited me to raid his orange grove, who was I to resist!? Oh, and Warren also had some ridiculously lush rhubarb that left mine for dead – so I wasn’t going to turn down a stalk or two either!
Deliciously unsweet, these muffins are lovely straight from the oven as a breakfast muffin or a savoury fruit muffin!
Here’s to you Warren, you’re a champion……oranges, rhubarb, and an ode to Warren.
Orange & Rhubarb Muffins
Makes: 12
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 75g butter, melted
- 175ml fresh orange juice (juice of approx 5 oranges)
- 1 Tbsp orange zest
- 3/4 cup caster sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 packed cup of finely sliced/diced raw rhubarb
- brown sugar (optional) to sprinkle
Method
- Preheat oven to 180°C fan forced.
- Beat egg and mix with melted butter, orange juice and zest.
- In another bowl add sugar, then sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix well. Fold dry ingredients with wet ingredients, and finally fold through the raw rhubarb.
- Fill medium sized muffin tins with mixture and bake for 20 minutes.
- For extra sweetener and a delicious crunch, sprinkle brown sugar on top.
