Sourdough Stories #18: Discard Recipes - Orange Cranberry Quick Bread & Waffles

Mandough has been very healthy & growing rapidly, so I took advantage of the Mother's Day weekend to make a few extra things to gift (and use up extra starter & discard).

We had oranges, orange juice, and dried cranberries in the house, so this recipe for orange cranberry quick bread seemed a perfect way to use up some discard.  I made some modifications to the recipe, so sharing my version below.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup (113g) sourdough discard
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1.5 cup AP flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• zest of one small orange or clementine
• Optional glaze: 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 2-3 tsp orange juice (I didn't make this, just because we were running short on time and the bread was still warm when I wrapped it up to take to my mom.)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a large bowl, combine the oil, sugars, and eggs and whisk together until creamy.
3. Add the sourdough discard, nutmeg, orange juice, milk, and whisk until well blended.
4. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder, and fold until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated.
5. Fold in the zest and cranberries, then transfer into a lightly greased loaf pan.
6. Bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Transfer out of the loaf pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Then add the glaze if you choose to.

I also made a giant pile of discard waffles using this recipe Rustic Family Recipes--I made no major changes to the recipe so you can just click over to their site.  They crisped up nicely--but word of warning--their recipe denotes a yield of "3-6 waffles".  That assumes that you have a large, normal size or Belgian waffle maker. if you have a cutesy little single waffle iron that makes Eggo-sized waffles, it actually makes about 15 waffles.  Perfect for keeping in the freezer or fridge and popping into the toaster. But again...you're making them one at a time.  So plan to spend about 45-60 minutes on that task.

Satsuma Pecan Muffins

So, if you're from outside of the Gulf Coast or California, you may be asking, "what's a satsuma?"  That's because up here, they go by other names: Halos, Cuties, Sweeties.... Yes! Those little mandarin oranges, that are so great to snack on (for kids and adults) because they peel easily and don't have big seeds.  

Satsumas are a popular backyard tree in Louisiana, where the temperate climate serves them well. They originated in Japan in the 1800's, but Louisianians have definitely adopted them into their culture.  Abita makes a Satsuma beer, you can get a satsuma snowball, find satsuma marmalade, and there's even a town named Satsuma.

We keep a stockpile of mandarins in our car because I can easily eat them while driving, as can Lil' Man (without making a big mess in his car seat).  I also like that they're a good food to share with panhandlers or the homeless (oranges and bananas are both great for this, but oranges stay better in your car longer.  A lot of folks who need some help don't have great teeth--I've tried to hand out apples before and had them politely turned down because they couldn't bite into them.)

And they're super-cheap this time of year (because they ripen from October - December), so we always have a 3 lb bag of them in our house.  But that also means that we need to go through them all, which can be a challenge.  So I started looking for recipes to use them in, and found this one!

Full disclosure, today's recipe is a spin from one over at CuliCurious. I've made enough changes to sort of "make it my own", but I have to give credit where it's due, because I don't think I would have thought to make muffins from them on my own.

INGREDIENTS:
2-3 satsuma mandarin oranges, plus 1 tsp orange zest
1.5 cups flour
0.5 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup unpacked brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp Steen's cane syrup
2 large eggs
0.5 cup plain Greek yogurt
6 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
1/2 cup pecan pieces

DIRECTIONS: (makes 6 jumbo muffins or 12 standard muffins)
Preheat the oven to 400F.

In a blender or food processor, add the peeled satsuma pieces and pulse until pulpy. Should make about 2/3 cup of liquid.  To this, add the other liquid ingredients (cane syrup, eggs, milk, yogurt, melted butter, ) and mix until combined.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, zest, cinnamon) and mix to combine, then add the liquid ingredients, but don't overbeat--it's okay if there's a few lumps.

Gently mix in the pecan pieces, and then let rest for 5 minutes before transferring into greased or lined muffin tins.  We made 6 large "Texas-size" muffins, but would also make about 10-12 standard muffins.

If making jumbo muffins, bake for about 20 minutes...if making standard muffins, about 15 minutes.  Check with a toothpick--the toothpick should come out clean and the edges of the muffins should be pulling away from the tin.

Transfer to a cooling rack once done--if you let the muffins cool in the tin, heat/steam can't escape fast enough and they can end up being mushy.

Note:  I originally made these with just 4 tablespoons of butter, and they ended up a touch dry, so we added butter.  The recipe above calls for 6 tablespoons of butter so they should be nice and moist.