When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. The same can also be said for dandelions except you make muffins.
The lawn is chock full of dandelion flowers and I have enlisted Juana and Olivia to be my helpers to harvest the makings of dandelion muffins.
Olivia is more interested in dropping the spent blossoms on the ground, but does help pull one or two on occasion.
We pull around 150 flowers and then start the delicate process of separating the petals from the sepal. Juana does much of the heavy lifting here as my stubby fingers are ill-suited to the task (at least that is what I tell her).
After we get over a cup of petals we add the other ingredients: 2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 1/2 cup of milk, 1 egg and 4 tablespoons of honey. The oven it heated to 375 F and 30 minutes later we have 24 muffins.
What is unusual for this recipe is the small amount of added sweetener: dandelion petals already have a slightly honey-like taste (perhaps that is why pollinators like them so much). Thus to retain that flavor, only a small amount of honey is needed.
Hot out of the oven, Juana, Olivia, and I try a muffin each. Juana’s fingers are still yellow from her petal pulling. But we all dig in appreciating the slightly sweet but savory flavor of our baked harvest. Yum! 😋
