Dandelion Muffins with the Niecelets

This is an odd confession, but as a child I ate flowers.

It started early, this strange habit. On my first birthday I ate the flower garland my mother had made for me to wear. Kids that age put anything in their mouths, but for me it didn't stop there. I remember nibbling on rose petals when I was six, and eating one of the flowers from the bouquet given to me at my ballet recital when I was eight. To be perfectly fair, my brother dared me to do it, but I did it all the same.

It was always disappointing. I wanted flower petals to taste wondrous, sweet and ethereal, but they never did. They mostly tasted bitter. By the age of ten I had given up eating them and instead tried to use them as makeup. I crushed purple iris buds and attempted to smear them on my eyelids and was sad that this didn’t tint them a stunning lavender color.

What can I say—I grew up in the country. This is what passed as afternoon adventure.

So when I saw a recipe for dandelion muffins and bread, on the website of Seattle forager Langdon Cook, I was intrigued. They were tinted yellow from the petals of the dandelion and looked so cheerful.

I’ve been rather curious about dandelions for a while. Last winter I received a comment on a post where the writer mentioned harvesting dandelions. It was one of those slap-yourself-on-the-head moments when I realized the greens I buy at the market for my ravioli filling are the same weeds that are growing in my lawn.

Well, not exactly the same—I believe it’s a different strain—but close enough. Ever since then I’ve been thinking about eating my lawn.



When I saw the recipe for dandelion muffins and my niecelets came over yesterday to play for the day, I decided to put my plan in action. I told the girls we were going to go on a dandelion hunt.

They were so excited. Fairies eat flowers, they told me. We were going to collect fairy food.

We put on our shoes and went out into the spring day to gather dandelions. Seeing as they’re blooming from just about every crack and crevice and lawn they can right now, it wasn’t hard to find them. The girls loved picking the bright yellow flowers.







When we had gathered enough we headed back to the house with our forage, feeling particularly pleased to have found such bounty.



The girls helped twist off the yellow flower petals (rather aggressively, I must add). We tried to make sure there were no green bits in there, as they are too bitter for the muffins.



We were left with a lovely pile of fluffy yellow petals. I did taste them at this point, and unlike the flower petals I had tried to eat as a child, these weren't bitter. They didn't have a very strong flavor at all. If pressed I would say they tasted like spring—slightly fresh—and they looked cheerful.



I'll admit to having moments of slight panic, when I wondered if I might be poisoning us all with yard weeds. These I calmed with the knowledge that Langdon is an experienced forager—has a book coming out on the topic—and he feeds dandelions to his own child. I also know there are old, traditional recipes for things like dandelion wine. Finally, a few people wrote in comments on his post saying they had made the muffins or bread—and clearly it hadn't killed them, so we plowed ahead.

I'm mostly kidding. I was fairly certain it was safe—dandelions are supposedly quite nutritious. It's just that eating something you've always thought of as weeds feels a bit odd. I didn't have much time to dwell on it, however, because we were into the baking portion of our experiment.

I make a regular effort to cook with the girls. Their mother doesn't cook, and my brother—who does, and quite well—has become more of a functional, get-dinner-on-the-table-quick-after-a-long-day-of-work sort of cook. The girls get a lot of frozen peas and macaroni and cheese and I understand the realities to this, but in the time we spend together I'd like to show them the other side of that coin. I want them to know how to cook. Later they can choose for themselves if they want to or not, but knowledge is power and being able to take care of yourself is never a bad thing.

And the truth of the matter is that they love it. They love "dumping the ingredients" into the bowl, they love mixing, they love running in to the kitchen check if the baked goods are done. Even the two and a half year old knows which button on the stove will turn on the light to see inside the oven. This makes me profoundly happy.

They each have their kitchen aprons, and they get so excited about whatever it is we're making. We have to be very clear about taking turns, because they are both eager to be involved. One of them holds the bowl for the other one to stir.



Then they switch.



Each time we make something I use it as an opportunity to bring more cooking concepts into their vocabulary. Yesterday we learned about "wet" ingredients and "dry" ingredients. We learned the name of that funny "whisk" thing. We also learned how a toothpick, inserted in the middle of a muffin, can tell you if it's done.

For me the prize is seeing the pleasure and pride the girls have when they get to eat something they've made—something they picked, even. Who cares if the kitchen is covered in flour, this is the payoff I was hoping for.



As for the muffins themselves, did they taste like dandelions? I'd have to say no, not in a strong way. I'm not sure what dandelion flavor is, really. If it was there, it was too faint to make much difference in the taste. Langdon said that he had doubled the amount of dandelion from the original recipe and said he might do even more.

Some of the comments on the original post were from people who had added other herbs. If I make them again I think I'd add fresh thyme. Then again, I'm more likely to just throw some dandelion into the next batch of cornbread muffins I make—the golden petals would be a perfect match for the texture. As Langdon mentions, the muffins are reminiscent of cornbread—not too sweet.

Not until we put butter and honey on them, that is.



Dandelion Muffins and Dandelion Bread recipe on Fat of the Land

So there you have it, my first foraging. I keep noticing a huge patch of stinging nettles that I pass on my walking route, so who knows where this might take me. I do know I'm very much looking forward to Langdon's book, out later this year. I think this foraging thing could get addictive.