So when I’m not planning advanced foraging workshops or signing up for craft or wellness fairs, apparently I am baking! Ashley wanted to know what a lemon loaf might taste like if we used Douglas Fir instead of lemon. The recipe in the Good Housekeeping Cookbook calls for eggs, and as those are not always in the house, I went looking for an eggless lemon loaf recipe to act as a starting point.
Continuing in the vein of rewilding common foods, I looked things over, and made a few adjustments. I replaced the baking powder with culinary ash, replaced the lemon juice with vinegar, replaced the lemon zest with powdered fir needles, and replaced the granulated sugar with fir tip syrup. I also replaced the vanilla extract with Flower Essence of Arrowleaf Balsamroot and of course, replaced half the flour with curly dock seed flour.
Apparently, vinegar does a more active job of bubbling the ash than lemon juice does, so I’ll be adjusting that in my biscuit recipe along with when to add the two to the flour blend. Before adding the vinegar, I’d blended the flours and salt, then dumped the fir powder on one spot and the ash in another on top of the flour blend. I stood there looking at my various liquid measures wondering if I might have too much liquid, then remembered, this is supposed to pour out of the bowl. I ended up skipping the water/milk called for in the original recipe, as it wasn’t needed.
Fir and Curly Dock Cupcakes – the small tray
I set up my hand mixer, added the Flower Essence of Arrowleaf Balsamroot, the oil, the fir syrup, and then added the vinegar and it started bubbling all over the place! As quickly as I could, I blended it all together with the hand mixer. As I keep hiding my loaf pan on myself, I pulled out my muffin tins and tore up some parchment paper, and spooned into the muffin cups, then put those in the oven for the 30min duration. My fork came out clean when 30 minutes was up.
Whipped Fir Butter, curdled?
In the meantime, I figured I’d try out a syrup-butter glaze idea, using the rest of the fir tip syrup and topping off the amount with a bit of fir mugolio (a fermented syrup). Either there is undeclared citric acid in the fir syrup, or mugolio is NOT what you want to use in making a whipped butter syrup! The butter curdled. It tastes great, but curdled, so I guess you could say I sort of made a version of lemon curd with fir instead of lemon.
My son is the hard-to-please taste pallet in the house, and he says I hit the nail on the head with this dessert! There’s a hint of crunch with the ash, but not as much as in the biscuit. The texture is almost bread-pudding-like, so choosing to bake it in muffin cups was a smart move. I’m very pleased that the baked result was fluffy and very cake-like, without any egg, baking powder or baking soda added.
One thing my daughter was hoping to achieve with her query, was if the recipe could be classified as “American made”, meaning the ingredients were all available somewhere on the American continents. Well, let’s see. . . flour is from wheat that grows in the Americas, the sugar used in the syrup is from cane grown in Central or South America and processed in my home province of BC Canada. . . the curly dock, arrowleaf balsamroot, and lamb’s quarters ash are all local to my region in the wild. . . the vinegar claims to be processed in Canada, and the olive oil claims to be processed in Italy. I didn’t try this with melted animal fat, and if I did, that would have been sourced from somewhere around Canada. So. . . we’re close? Not 100% wild, and not quite 100% western hemisphere, but we’re close.
Here’s my recipe for Curly Dock Fir Cupcakes
Curly Dock Fir Cupcakes
Ingredients
1 cups all-purpose flour, 270 g
1 cup curly dock seed flour
1 tsp salt
1.25 cup fir syrup
2 1/2 tbsp culinary ash, 10 g
1/2 cup melted coconut oil or olive oil or animal fat
1/3 cup vinegar, 55 g
2 tbsp fir needle powder
1 teaspoon Flower Essence of Arrowleaf Balsamroot
Glaze
1/2 cup fir syrup whipped (for immediate serving)
1/2 cup butter
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C) and line a standard-sized loaf pan with parchment paper so it sticks out over at least 2 sides of the pan. This will make it easier to lift the loaf out once baked.
Mix the flour and salt together in a mixing bowl until well combined.
Add the syrup, oil, milk or water, ash, vinegar, fir powder, and Flower Essence of Arrowleaf Balsamroot and gently but quickly fold everything together just until all of the dry ingredients have been wetted. Avoid over-mixing. Note that if you’re using coconut oil, be sure the other liquids are at room temperature to prevent the oil from hardening.
Transfer the batter to the loaf pan and bake for about 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Avoid opening the oven door to check the loaf before 30 minutes.
Let the loaf cool in the pan for 15 minutes then lift it out of the pan and onto a cooling rack to cool completely. Do not slice before cooling completely.
To add the glaze, beat the syrup until frothy for immediate serving, may take up to 30min. Or cream the butter and syrup together until soft peaks form. Once the cupcakes have fully cooled, pour or spread the glaze over them and allow to set for a few minutes. Alternatively, set glaze out as a spread with a butter knife.
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