{"id":1766,"date":"2010-09-01T12:15:22","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T04:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/?p=1766"},"modified":"2010-10-17T16:13:41","modified_gmt":"2010-10-17T08:13:41","slug":"1766","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/1766\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandarin muffins"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

In some of my previous posts I have mentioned the generosity of friends and colleagues when it comes to serving my passion for cooking.\u00a0 Several\u00a0of them\u00a0grow their own fruit and vegetables and often I am the fortunate recipient of any excess\u00a0goods\u00a0that they may have.<\/p>\n

One of my friends from the office, Greg S, is lucky enough to have a small orchard on his property and he works hard to cultivate wonderful produce.\u00a0 His generosity is appreciated by many people within the office and especially by me.\u00a0 His latest donation to my cause was some gorgeous mandarins picked from the tree the evening before I received them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I must confess that I have not used this particular citrus fruit many times in my cooking adventures\u00a0so a little research was necessary.\u00a0 During\u00a0the search I honoured my commitment to try and use cookbooks before turning to the internet but there was nothing that suited my purpose. \u00a0Given the source of the key ingredient I wanted to make something that I could share with others in the office, to show my\u00a0gratitude and highlight Greg’s skill in tending his wares.\u00a0 I also didn’t want to have to boil fruit for several hours or\u00a0use too many complicated processes. \u00a0So after trawling the wealth of information known as the world wide web I finally settled\u00a0on a recipe that used the fresh fruit segments in a simple way.\u00a0 It came from a website that I had never heard of which is something that I love about finding new things to bake.\u00a0 The Mountain Mandarin Growers are located in California and have been growing this variety of fruit for over 50 years.\u00a0 Their website\u00a0provides some unusual recipes such as ‘Cucumber and Mandarin Orange Salad’, ‘Honey Ham with Mandarin Oranges’ and my personal favourite, ‘Mandarin Madness Milkshake.’\u00a0 I chose something a little simpler and more mainstream,\u00a0I hope you enjoy it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

mandarin muffins (recipe from <\/span>Mountain Mandarin Growers Association<\/span><\/a>\u00a0adapted by Fiona at Food 4 Thought)
\nmakes 12<\/span><\/p>\n

Ingredients\u00a0<\/span>
\n300g (11 ozs) fresh mandarins to yield 250g (8.8 ozs) segments
\n1 \u00bd cups plain (all-purpose) flour\u00a0
\n1 \u00be teaspoon baking powder\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u00bd\u00a0teaspoon salt\u00a0
\n\u00bc\u00a0teaspoon ground nutmeg\u00a0
\n\u00bc\u00a0teaspoon allspice\u00a0
\n\u00bd cup castor sugar\u00a0\u00a0
\n85g (3 ozs) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly\u00a0
\n1 egg, slightly beaten\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u00bd cup (125 ml) milk\u00a0
\nTopping<\/em>
\n2 tablespoons butter, melted
\n2 tablespoons castor sugar with \u00bd\u00a0teaspoon cinnamon\u00a0added
\n\u00a0
\nPreparation\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/em>Preheat oven to 180\u00b0C (350\u00b0F\/Gas 4).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Peel mandarins, remove any pith and threads then gently remove seeds.\u00a0 Place segments in a bowl and set aside.\u00a0 In a separate\u00a0large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, spices and sugar.\u00a0 Add mandarin\u00a0segments and mix lightly.<\/p>\n

Combine the melted and cooled butter, lightly beaten egg and milk in a jug and whisk to combine.\u00a0\u00a0 Add to flour mixture and stir until all ingredients are\u00a0just combined.\u00a0 Spoon into greased muffin pan to about 3\/4 depth and\u00a0bake for\u00a020 to 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.<\/p>\n

Remove from pan and while still a little warm brush with melted butter, then sprinkle generously\u00a0with cinnamon sugar mixture.<\/p>\n

My tips\/alterations:<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0*I choose to change the recipe slightly to try and lighten the mixture as I thought\u00a0the original might be too heavy.\u00a0 The changes I made seemed to\u00a0work well.\u00a0 *Don’t overmix the batter as this can make the mixture become tough\u00a0once it is cooked.\u00a0 You should stir it until all the ingredients are just combined.\u00a0 Lumpy batter is okay.\u00a0 *The mandarins have a slight bitterness when they are cooked but the\u00a0cinnamon\u00a0sugar balances\u00a0that out.\u00a0\u00a0It also gave the top a nice crunch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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ease: 9\/10.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Simple melt and mix method.\u00a0 The hardest part was peeling the mandarins.\u00a0
\nprep time:<\/strong>\u00a030mins <\/strong>+ 5mins to decorate.\u00a0<\/strong>
\ncooking time: 25mins.<\/strong>
\ntotal: 60mins.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

taste: 8\/10.<\/strong>\u00a0 These weren’t as light as I would have liked, however they were extremely tasty.\u00a0 The recipe highlighted the mandarin flavour and the sugar topping balanced it perfectly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

would I make it again:\u00a0\u00a0Maybe.<\/strong>\u00a0 But only if I had excess mandarins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

In some of my previous posts I have mentioned the generosity of friends and colleagues when it comes to serving my passion for cooking. Several of them grow their own fruit and vegetables and often I am the fortunate recipient of any excess goods that they may have.<\/p>\n

One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[78,31,50,48,35,29],"tags":[6,104,122,119,107,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1766"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1877,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766\/revisions\/1877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foodfourthought.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}