Why did my green tea muffins turn black?
I made green tea muffins following the recipe here. I like my muffins moist and fluffy, so I added banana as suggested by the recipe and replaced half of the baking powder with baking soda. I also added a teaspoon of rice vinegar to activate the baking soda.
Right before baking the mix was vibrantly green, but after 13 minutes in the oven the muffins had turned very dark — and this morning they were even darker.
What happened, and how can I prevent it?
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Reviewing HaroldMcGee and thanks to rumtscho's test, it seems to be more complex than just changing the pH environment.
The culprit is still likely the banana content though. According to Harold McGee, high temperatures can result in the phenolic components of the banana to create a brown discolorization, even if the enzymes who are usually responsible for the browning process of bananas together with oxygen, are no longer active.
An acidic environment helps preventing this, so the high temperature + banana + not very acidic environment is a fair chance for the reason your muffins turned out so dark.
If you take a look at the results of.. why does my tea turn dark dark darker when I add baking soda.
The results indicate that the chemistry changes.
Acids create lighter colors. Bases remove some acid ions and allow darker base ions to color the product. Use the baking powder and add a squish of lemon juice, the muffins should be lighter..
I blame the banana. Always blaming the banana. Bananas get black, they do.
Go again but this time sub in smashed canned pears and a spoon or 2 of mascarpone cheese instead of banana.
Your first step would be to stick to the recipe. pH changes are well known to interfere with plant pigments. Adding baking soda and vinegar can very well have interfered with something in the muffins, be it the tea or something else. I am not 100% sure this must have been it, but it is the likeliest reason.
Also, I would recommend against making changes to a recipe before you have tried it as-written. You cannot know how changes affect it, and what unintended consequences they have, until you have established a reference. For example, you cannot know if your addition of baking soda made the muffins both fluffier and darker, or if it only made them dark without any change in fluffiness.
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