Test Kitchen Thursday - Rhubarb Muffins

Rhubarb season is here again!

Actually, I was all ready to do a post on chocolate cupcakes today.  Don't know what hit me this morning but felt like making a batch of muffins for breakfast.  Did a quick search online before the kiddos woke up.  Wanted something with fruit but didn't have apples, already have a go to blueberry muffin recipe so wanted something new.  Scrolling along up pops rhubarb.  Perfect.  And no, I did not use fresh rhubarb although I easily could have.  I decided that the frozen rhubarb from last year's crop needed to be used up first.  Why is it I put up all this produce and then hoard it through the winter?  Anyway, a new crop of rhubarb will be frozen soon so time to finish up the frozen.

I LOVE rhubarb!  In any form - even raw.  I know - I'm strange.

Here is the recipe I found on allrecipes.com: (my modifications in red italics)

Yield 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt (didn't have yogurt so used sour cream instead)
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 egg (my hens are laying again so this one was still warm - but truly any egg will do)
• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup diced rhubarb (used 2 heaping cups of rhubarb based on others comments)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 cup crushed sliced almonds (didn't have almonds so substituted oatmeal)
• 2 teaspoons melted butter

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 12 cup muffin tin, or line with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the yogurt, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, oil and egg. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, 3/4 cup of brown sugar, baking soda and salt. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and mix until just blended. Fold in rhubarb. Spoon into the prepared muffin tin, filling cups at least 2/3 full.
3. In a small bowl, stir together 1/4 cup of brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, almonds, and 2 teaspoons of melted butter. Spoon over the tops of the muffins, and press down lightly.
4. Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before removing (I only cool muffins for 5 minutes or less in pan before removing).

This recipe (with modification) was delicious!  I'm so glad I added the extra rhubarb or I don't think I would have liked it as well. Probably a personal preference on how much rhubarb flavor you want.  Much more though and you'll have complete mush for muffins.  A couple of my muffin bottoms were a bit soggy but this may also be because the boys had to tear into them right away.

Addie has been doing very good with self feeding and likes little crumbled bits of homemade breads and muffins.  No lie, she devoured a whole muffin this morning.  She really liked the pieces with soft rhubarb chunks.  I realize this may be because these are sweet and I really don't give her much that is sweet.  But we are moving towards her eating soft variations of family meals now and she enjoys eating the same things she sees everyone else eating.

Now to figure out if this recipe is worth working on as a State Fair entry.  I've done fairly well with quick breads in the past at the ISF but have never taken muffins.  I may try taking some muffins in addition to the quick breads this year.  They're easy and they freeze and thaw very well so can do them in advance.  With only 3 months and a few weeks to go I'd better start deciding what's fair entry worthy and what isn't.

See already working on uniform sets of 4 :)

Shoot - 2 look great the other 2 are not quite right!  You've no idea how much time is spent (at least for me) reviewing a batch of something for entry looking for not only uniformity but quality. I hem and haw a LOT!

In summary - great recipe - go use some rhubarb and ENJOY!