Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts

Friday, March 25, 2011

Orange and Lemon Cupcakes-When Life Hands You Lemons Part 2…

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Arizona is full-on spring time!  The citrus trees’ produce is perfect for picking.  We keep going to my parents citrus orchard (really it’s just their backyard but they have plenty of trees!) and picking bags of citrus.  So I’ve been trying to make as many different citrus-y things as I can.  Did you see my orange and lemon rolls?

A fantastic recipe to bake inside of citrus is cake! I grew up doing this at camp. 

1. Cut off top of fruit.

2.  Take flesh out of fruit (then eat the flesh or juice it).

3.  Fill fruit shell halfway with cake batter.

4.  Put top/lid back on and put into muffin tin.

5.  Cook as directed for cupcakes.

6.  Either eat with a spoon, or peel the citrus skin away (kind of hard to do).

7.  Enjoy!

We used to make these at camp.  You make the batter and fill them while at home.  Then when they are filled with the cake batter you cover each fruit tightly with tin foil.  Keep these in the cooler until you are making dinner.  Throw these into the fire while cooking your dinner.  They take a little longer than cupcakes would.  I think they are best done this way.  Isn’t everything yummier when cooked by a fire?

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This is a great project to do with your kids.  You cut the tops off and let your kids pull the flesh out.  We then ran all the flesh through the juicer and enjoyed our juice while the cupcakes were baking.

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The cake totally takes on a citrus-y flavor that is awesome!  And they cook up super moist! 

 

We made these in oranges and lemons.  We also used chocolate and vanilla cake batter.  All 4 variations were delish!

 

Try this and let me know what you think!

 

I’m still searching for more recipes using citrus.  Please let me know and I will post a list!

 

Rebecca

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Orange and Lemon Rolls-Or, When Life Hands You Lemons…

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We just picked more than a bushel of oranges and lemons!  My parents have a backyard full of citrus trees.  The kids and I headed over and helped lighten the load of those poor trees’ branches.  They were gorgeously full!  I love how pretty trees are fully laden with their fruit! 

Such a great way to spend some time with my kids!  Outside, gathering fruit, helping each other….

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So we’ve been busy making everything citrus that we can.  First up was lemon and orange juice.  As a crafter, I just could NOT throw all of that beautiful peel away.  So, as I juiced we cut the fruit in half and pulled the flesh out to save them as fruit cups.

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Next, I added frozen dough to each one and let it rise.  I also made a citrus butter (just added lemon juice to melted butter, or orange juice for the orange rolls) to coat the tops with before I baked them up!  I just baked them like I would normal rolls.

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Oh these smelled like heaven while they were baking!

 

My overall conclusion was that they were not as citrus-y tasting as I was hoping for.  Next time I will add way more lemon or orange juice to the butter!  They also needed extra cooking time because the bottoms (that were inside of the fruit cups) wanted to stay dough-y.  They were still all devoured in one day.  We love carbs in my house!

 

After we ate the rolls out of the fruit cups, I shredded the cups and added them to my compost.  So that made these oranges and lemons a 3-for-1!!  YAY!

 

I have a few more fun things that I have done with my citrus bounty.  I have many more lemons, orange, limes, and grapefruit.  I’d love to know what you have done with yours.  Do you have any great citrus recipes?

 

Rebecca