Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

Citrus-packed mandarin muffins can brighten a winter morning

Recipe: Bakery-style mandarin muffins with raisins

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED DEC 1, 2024

The first citrus fruit of the season flavors this bright muffin. Debbie Arrington

Like a taste of sunshine, mandarins may be the perfect winter fruit. They’re sweet, juicy and packed with vitamin C (good for fighting winter colds).

Mandarins in bowl — It's mandarin season, and the fruit is gorgeous.

It’s mandarin season and these delightful easy-to-peel gems are in good supply. You’ll need only two or three for a batch of these bright yellow muffins.

These muffins are bakery style with big fluffy tops that overextend their cups. The trick is to fill the cups to the top edge – and make sure to grease the top of the muffin tin so the muffin tops don’t stick. Paper or silicone liners are a must.

These muffins will freeze well, too. So any time you want a taste of sunshine, just defrost a muffin.

Mandarin muffins

Makes 12 to 15

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

½ cup shortening

1 to 2 tablespoons mandarin zest

1-3/4 cups sugar

1/3 cup fresh-squeezed mandarin juice (about 2 or 3 mandarins)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup milk

¼ cup cream

½ cup raisins (optional)

Sugar for topping

Instructions:

Muffins in pan — Be sure to grease the top of the muffin pan, since
these muffins overflow their cups.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare muffin tin; grease top and line cups with paper or silicon liners. Set aside.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream together butter, shortening and mandarin zest. Add sugar and blend with mixer on medium speed until creamy. With the mixer running, add mandarin juice in a steady stream. Add vanilla.

Mix together milk and cream. Alternately, add a third of flour mixture and a third of milk mixture to the batter, mixing well after each addition until fully incorporated. Fold in raisins, if using.

Let batter rest for 10 minutes before filling cups.

With two spoons, gently fill muffin cups to the rim. Sprinkle sugar over the top of each muffin.

Bake muffins in preheated 375-degree oven for 25 minutes or until tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let the muffins rest in the muffin tin for 10 minutes after baking. Use a sharp, thin-bladed knife to separate edges (if necessary) before lifting muffins out of the tin.

Then, transfer the muffins to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipe recipes mandarins citrus December fall baking Sacramento gardening backyard produce farmers markets produce management

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Flowers in My Back Yard Series

Aug. 25: Crape myrtles, Sacramento's unofficial tree of summer

Aug. 18: Pollinators adore scabiosa, aka pincushion flower

Aug. 11: Hardy hibiscus adds big tropical impact

Aug. 4: Dianthus a deceptively hardy flower

July 28: Naked Ladies put on summer show

July 21: Thank Luther Burbank for these long-lasting beauties (Shasta daisies)

July 14: How to keep hydrangeas happy

July 7: Grow these bright cosmos for bees and butterflies

June 30: Agapanthus adds blue fireworks to the garden

June 23: Easy-care gazanias fill those hot corners

June 16: Daylilies are perfect for water-wise gardens (and a lot more)

June 9: Grow coneflowers for pollinators -- and yourself

June 2: Sunflowers capture Sacramento's summer attitude

May 29: Are your roses going 'blind'?

May 26: Zinnias are the summer flowers every garden needs

May 19: Plant dahlias now for late-summer flower power

May 12: Know your coreopsis from your bidens

May 5: Mums the word on Mother's Day weekend

April 28: Majestic Matilija poppy is worth a look

April 21: Celebrate roses, America's favorite flower

April 14: Small flowers with outsized impact

April 7: Calendulas do double duty

April 3: Make Easter lilies last for years to come

March 31: In praise of a pollinator magnet (small-leaf salvias)

March 24: Azaleas brighten shady spots

March 17: The perfect flower for beginners? Try zonal geraniums

March 10: Keep camellias happy for years to come

March 3: Fruit tree blossoms are a fleeting joy

Feb. 27: Are your roses looking rusty?

Feb. 24: Treasure spring daffodils now and for years to come

Feb. 17: How and why to grow wildflowers

Feb. 10: Let's talk Valentine's Day roses

Feb. 3: Why grow flowers?

Local News

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Sites We Like

Garden checklist for week of Aug. 16

During this break in the heat, feed your garden. Make sure to water before and after applying fertilizer.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips.

* Plant potatoes.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers. Also, give them a boost with phosphate-rich fertilizer to help fruiting.

* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.

* Feed citrus trees their last round of fertilizer for the year. This will give a boost to the fruit that’s still small.

* Mulch can be your garden’s best friend – it conserves moisture while blocking out weeds. But don't let mulch mound around stalks, stems or trunks. That can promote rot.

* Camellia leaves looking a little yellow? Give them some chelated iron. That goes for azaleas and gardenias, too.

* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot. Then feed fruit trees with slow-release fertilizer for better production for next year.

* To prolong bloom into fall, feed begonias, fuchsias and container plants. Always water before fertilizing.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials, too. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

* Prepare for a fall full of flowers by paying a little extra attention to your garden. Cut off spent blooms from roses, annuals and perennials, then give them a boost of fertilizer. Make sure to water plants before feeding. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

Send us a gardening question, a post suggestion or information about an upcoming event. sacdigsgardening@gmail.com

Taste Spring! E-cookbook