Dragon Fruit Muffins - (AKA Pitahaya Or Pitaya)

Dragon fruit?  I do believe dragon fruit is a cactus, indigenous to the Americas.  It can have white, pink or yellow flesh.  I used pink-fleshed chunks, fresh from the supermarket freezer :-)  And some dragon fruit powder, delightfully, iridescently pink.  The basic muffin recipe (by Suzanne Gibbs) is from an ancient recipe I cut from a New Idea magazine aeons ago.  It called for blueberries, but I wanted to change it up.  So here we are!

see the dragon fruit seeds?

I made these in the morning, before Mr P. and I (and our friend Mr. N.) were to give a talk at the local Historical Society, of which we are members.  This was a talk we had previously given at our other Hist. Soc.  Yes, we are in two!   This one was postponed 3 times (over 18 months) due to Covid, so we were happy to finally be able to present it. 

Hubby to the left of me; Mr. N. on the right

And that's Frank Corley on the very right.  We had a lot of fun giving this talk at the Windsor & Districts Historical Society.  The funny thing is when you type in Windsor Hist. Soc., the English one pops up, so you get people adding posts to that one.  Just a wee bit far away ...

ingredients:

250g. (2 cups) plain flour (wholemeal if you have it)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarb soda

2 tsp dragon fruit powder (optional)

1/2 tsp of nutmeg, and of cinnamon, and of salt

165g. (3/4 cup) demerara or raw sugar

45g. (1.6 oz) melted butter

180 mL (3/4 cup) buttermilk

1 cup frozen dragon fruit (150g.) - or blueberries or fruit of your choice

extra demerara and/or raw caster sugar to strew on top before baking

Method:

Sift the dry ingredients (EXCEPT the sugar) into a large mixing bowl, then whisk the sugar into the sifted mixture

Stir in the butter, buttermilk and fruit till just mixed - be gentle; you don't want to get the gluten into a frenzy

Spoon in the batter so your muffin holes (cups?) are three quarters full, then sprinkle on the extra sugar, if using

Bake in a preheated moderately hot oven 190C/375F for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden, have risen and smell deeeelicious 

Notes:

My batter was very dry, so I ended up adding about 60 mL (3-4 tbs) extra milk; still a rather dry, lumpy batter but that's okay!

I made my own buttermilk as I didn't have any: 3/4 cup milk to 2.5 tsp of lemon juice (or use a mild vinegar).  Leave it sit for 10 minutes, then you will have a delightfully lumpy, curdled mixture ready for the baking

sift your dry ingredients (bar the sugar) 

make your buttermilk

introduce the wet to the dry

a pretty dry batter

whack 'em in the oven for 15-20 mins.

after 20 mins. baking

they didn't last long

not too sweet, moist and fruity

Sadly the pink batter turns into a caramel-coloured muffin.  'Twas delicious nonetheless.  I feel another batch coming on soon ...

© Sherry M.