Adventures in kumquats

It was love at first sight.

We stopped off at The Fruit Bowl fruit stand outside of Stockton, Calif. to buy a farmers market basket. Among the early-summer offerings, nestled beside the plums and nectarines and peaches and pluots (all of which my son is allergic to...) was a small display of something called "kumquats."

Of course I'd heard of kumquats before, but had never actually *seen* one. They're like tiny, cute little pygmy tangerines, maybe about the size of a large grape:



We walked away with a new farmers market basket full of kumquats.

But what to do with them? Certainly not eat them out of hand, as suggested by numerous internet sources. I tried one; just bit into it, skin and all, and it was much as you would expect a citrus fruit to taste like if you left the rind on.

I came across an intriguing recipe for cupcakes, but it called for minced, raw kumquats. I imagined that even the 20-22 minutes the batter would spend in a hot oven would not burn away the taste of raw kumquat, so I thought maybe the ubiquitous candied kumquat recipe that I kept stumbling upon would make a fine substitute.

Side note: So how much tinkering is required to make a recipe one's own? I made many adjustments to a kumquat-and-coconut cupcake recipe, maybe even enough to render it unrecognizable? Can I call it mine? Do I have to refer to my inspiration? No? Okay.

So here it is, possibly the most complicated cupcake recipe yet:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kelly's Kandied Kumquat and Kokonut Kupcakes
Makes approx. 30 cupcakes

1 cup shredded, sweetened coconut, toasted
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk, stirred well
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
4 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup candied kumquats
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon orange zest (about one orange)
1 tablespoon lemon zest (about one lemon)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with muffin liners.

Toast the coconut: Place in a dry skillet over medium heat, and gently stir until aromatic and golden brown, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together.

Pour the coconut milk into a small saucepan, add the butter, and heat until the milk is hot and the butter is melted. Remove from the heat, but keep warm.

Working with a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, in a large bowl beat the eggs, sugar, candied kumquats, orange juice, lemon juice, orange zest, and lemon zest at medium-high speed until thick and almost doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients.

Keeping the mixer on low, add 1 cup of toasted coconut, mixing until just blended, then slowly add the warm milk and butter. After thoroughly mixed, pour batter into muffin pans, filling each cup about 2/3 full.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto the rack to cool to room temperature.

Frost with lemon buttercream frosting, sprinkle with toasted coconut, garnish with candied kumquat.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting:
2/3 cup butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
4 tablespoons lemon juice

In a bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating well. Beat in grated lemon peel and enough lemon juice until desired spreading consistency.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Candy the kumquats! Just sugar, water and kumquats. Boil it all down. The resulting, chewy little gems are tasty and evocative of something from the Victorian era. (Mumsy! Mumsy! St. Niklaus left me a candied kumquat in my stocking! Wot wot, guv-nah?!??)



And pretty! After straining the kumquats out, the syrup left behind cools into a loose and runny jelly. Also quite tasty.



I added an extra layer of flavor by warming up some of the kumquat jelly and brushing it onto the tops of the still-hot cupcakes.



So not a terribly *hard* recipe. There are just a lot of little processes involved in making one cupcake: candying the kumquats, toasting the coconut, heating the coconut milk and butter, etc.




The verdict: labor-intensive. I would file this one under "Very Special Occasion Cupcake." I wound up making these for my mom's birthday Friday night, so I guess that qualifies. And I might also add, they taste very, very good. The essence of summer captcha'd in a cupcake.