Zucchini Lime Muffins #MuffinMonday

Moist and delicious, these zucchini lime muffins are made with homegrown citrus from my garden in Cairo and sport a wonderful oaty crumble on top.

 

Here’s something I don’t think I have shared with you all before:  I have an alien fruit tree in my yard.   They are clearly of the citrus variety and smell just like oranges.  They are also perfectly spherical, just like oranges.  But the outsides are green.  

I thought they might change color, but so far, they have not.  They were mere flower buds on the tree when we moved here in January and I have been waiting nine long months for the fruit to be ready to pick.  

The problem is, how do you know when citrus is ready to pick?  Every so often I wander outside and give the lower ones a squeeze.  Surely when they are ripe and full of juice, they will soften up slightly, right?   Well, they sure haven’t yet. Not much anyway.  

When I received the email with this week’s Muffin Monday recipe, and it was a Zucchini Lemon Muffin, I decided it was time. Because I am tired of waiting. Nine months, people!  And if they taste like orange or lime, either way, they will make a good muffin. (And if they don’t taste good, I had some store bought limes for back up!)  

So I picked a couple and cut one open.  Despite the distinct smell of orange, the juice is sour and tastes like lime. I decided right there to add brown sugar to the mix because all that sourness would not be relieved by only syrup for sweetening. 

So I give you homegrown lime muffins with zucchini and brown sugar, with a brown sugar crumble topping.  And they were good.

Ingredients

For the muffin:

1/2 cup or 70g flour

1/4 cup or 25g ground almonds

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup or 20g traditional or rolled oats

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup or 60ml Lyle’s Golden Syrup

2 tablespoons lime zest (from 2 large limes - and one more for the topping)

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 egg

1/4 cup or 60ml canola oil

1/4 cup or 60ml yogurt

1/2 cup or 60g zucchini

For the topping:

1/4 cup oats

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon COLD butter

Zest of one large lime

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and line a muffin tin with six liners or grease generously.  (The recipe made eight for me and you will see later how full I filled the cups.)

Combine the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, oats, salt and brown sugar in a medium bowl.  Stir and set aside.

Zest and juice your limes.  Make sure to strain out the seeds.

Put all the topping ingredients - cold butter, 1 tablespoon of lime zest, oats and brown sugar – into your food processor and give them a quick zip until they look like large crumbs.  Set aside.

Whisk together the syrup, the remaining lime zest, lime juice, 1 egg, canola oil and yogurt in a small bowl.  

Grate in the zucchini and stir.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined.

Divide among six (or eight or 10 muffin) liners.  

Divide the crumble mix among the muffins.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

Remove the muffins and place on a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

And just for fun, here's the hound playing with one of the green "balls" from our tree.  He has been wanting one since they became big enough for him to notice them hanging there. 

Exploratory sniff.

I'll have that!

Catching the ball mid-air.

Quick chew - not so tasty. 

The ball that bites back!