Rhubarb Streusel Muffins

I have never cooked with rhubarb before. My friend Shawna gave me some rhubarb from her garden so I decided to make these muffins.

Rhubarb Streusel Muffins
based on this recipe from Recipezaar

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup applesauce + oil mix (see note below)
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
• 1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped

Topping

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp butter or margerine

Preheat oven to 400°F. Mix brown sugar, applesauce, oil, egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Add the butter milk. Mix well. Add rhubarb. Pour into muffin cups. Sprinkle topping evenly on unbaked muffins. Bake for 20 minutes. Makes 18 muffins.

Recipe Notes: These are yummy. They have a lot of sugar in them but the rhubarb is quite sour so I’m not sure about reducing it. For the applesauce/oil mixture, I used a single serve applesauce. I spooned it into a 1/2 cup measuring cup & filled the cup the rest of the way with oil. I’ve found that totally replacing oil with applesauce really affects the texture/taste of the finished product. This method seemed to work well without adversely affecting the taste & texture of the muffin. I would recommend that you do not use muffin papers for this recipe. I did and these muffins stuck to the papers. Not sure why or how to fix it. I’m sure it would work without the papers (just grease the muffin pan).

Don’t forget to check out Shan’s blog to see what else is cooking this Wednesday.