Rhubarb muffins with cinnamon streusel

Rhubarb was on the most amazing sale ever last week, so I stocked up. Of course, my most favourite dish with rhubarb is strawberry rhubarb pie. It can’t be beat!! Unfortunately, it’s still about a month away from strawberry season here in Nova Scotia. I decided to “settle on” (and by settle, I mean found every excuse to bake) this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for rhubarb streusel muffins.

I’ve never baked with sour cream before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect other than that they’d hopefully be nice and moist. They are! Well… were (they’re long gone). If you’re going to try this recipe, I would recommend chopping the rhubarb into slightly smaller pieces and using slightly more than a cup. I also adjusted the recipe to make slightly less streusel and used only all-purpose flour.

Here’s the recipe as adapted from Smitten Kitchen:

Streusel:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tbs granulated sugar
3 tbs brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
2 tbs butter, melted

Muffins:
1 egg
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbs granulated sugar
5 tbs butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1+ cup diced rhubarb, in 1/4-inch pieces

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Streusel:
Mix together flours, sugars, and spices. Mix in melted butter and stir until crumbly. Set aside for addition to batter and for topping.

Muffins:
Whisk together the egg and both sugars. Whisk in butter, then sour cream. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir the flour mixture into the sour cream mixture, mixing until just combined. Fold in rhubarb and ~ half of the streusel mixture.

Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle each muffin with the remaining streusel, pressing the crumbs into the batter so that they adhere.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes.

Let cool. Enjoy!

Carrot apple muffins

As I mentioned, we’ve started to change the way we cook meals in our house. That means having lots of veggies on hand all the time, including carrots. I found this recipe from the blog I Love Muffins and was too excited to try it. It was one of those instances where I had all the ingredients on hand. 

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder/soda, salt). In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients (carrots, applesauce, eggs, milk, oil, extract). Add the dry to the wet, in stages, while mixing. Bake at 350F for ~20 minutes.

This is a simple recipe and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. They’re denser muffins than I expected, though, and aren’t light and fluffy like others. At the same time, they’re very delicious and moist. Definitely good to bring out as a snack (and by out, I mean to class… which starts today… oh yay!).

Peanut butter banana muffins

I’ve made plenty of banana bread in my life, but for some reason I’ve never thought much about adding the deliciousness of peanut butter. Given this obvious baking-lapse-in-judgement-and-creativity, I decide to mash together some bananas and peanut butter in a new recipe I like to call: peanut butter banana muffins. Yes, both original and descriptive! Well, here it is:

2 mashed bananas
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour
Some enthusiastic dashes of cinnamon

Mash up the bananas. Add the peanut butter. Mash it up. Add egg. Continue mashing.
Mash in the oil and then the sugar.
In a separate bowl, mash up the dry ingredients.
Add the dry to the wet and mash it up.
Mash the mixture into muffin cups or a lined loaf pan.

Bake at 350F for about 15 minutes.

I noticed that making this recipe include peanut butter changed the cooking speed of the muffins. They cooked much fasted and browned much more quickly than a plain banana muffin or loaf. Keep an eye on the goodies in the oven and then remove when lightly goldened. Use a fork or toothpick to check when they’re done (the removed fork/pick should be clean with no batter).

The last step is obviously to enjoy. Yums.