Rhubarb Muffins

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
See more recipes here

Here’s number two of my rhubarb deliciousness kick.  It’s an adaption of a recipe from my favorite cooking blog, Smitten Kitchen, which interestingly post just as I was getting ready to make muffins of on of my tried-and-true recipes.  I loved Deb’s description of them as “a balance […] between the cakey confection we sometimes crave with coffee and [her] insistence that breakfast not be too sweet or rich or guilt-inducing;” since I had planed to take them to a LLL meeting as a healthy morning snack, I was intrigued.  When I saw that they only required one egg and that I could double the recipe without having to mess with the grocery budget, I was sold.

Wondering what it means when I say I “adapted” a recipe?  Here’s the run-down on this one: I made a few adjustments as I was baking them, plus an after thought change to the streusel.   I used whole wheat flour (not even the pastry kind) and swapped her sour cream for whole milk vanilla yogurt; towards the end, you can see in the pictures my “oops” moment of realizing that the wheat flour was going to require more moisture, so I quickly stirred in more yogurt before adding the rhubarb…the recipe below is corrected to avoid this.  That’s sort of how I bake: never following recipes to a T and with lots of experimentation.  (I also do a lot of guestimation measuring when cooking for our family – mostly measuring with the 1/4 cup and the 1/2 teaspoon whether the measurement is bigger or smaller.)   After the near too-dry batter save, these muffins turned out great.  I did think that her streusel wasn’t sweet or spiced enough, so I’m made some changes there too.  After all that you get my version of Deb’s yummy muffins:Ingredients:

 

 

Streusel

• 1/4 cup wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• 3 tablespoons (42 grams) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Muffins

• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 5 tablespoons  butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm
• 1 1/2 cup whole milk vanilla yogurt (such as Stoneyfield Farm)
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups diced rhubarb, in 1/2-inch pieces (from about 2-3 stalks)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter 12 muffin cups.

Make streusel: In a small dish, stir together flour, sugars, spices and salt. Stir in butter until crumbly. If using, stir in nuts.  Set aside.

Make muffins: Whisk egg in the bottom of a large bowl with both sugars. Whisk in butter, then yogurt. In a separate bowl, mix together flours, baking powder and baking soda and stir them into the yogurt mixture, mixing until just combined and still a bit lumpy. Fold in rhubarb and about 1/3 of the streusel mixture.

Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle each muffin with remaining streusel, then use a spoon to gently press the crumbs into the batter so that they adhere. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean. Rest muffins in pan on cooling rack for two minutes, then remove muffins from tin to cool them completely.