Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins

The other day, I went on a cooking spree. I had about 10 stalks of rhubarb in the fridge from the University District Farmers’ Market and they were starting to go soft.

Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins

I also had a pint of strawberries leftover from the half flat I bought at the Wallingford Farmers’ Market. So I started looking for a recipe for strawberry rhubarb muffins. The muffins were a bit of an experiment. I looked up half a dozen recipes and just threw these together with no expectation of whether or not they would work.

Lucky for me (and even luckier for my coworkers, who got to get the majority of these muffins), they were very tasty. Since the fruit is mixed in with the batter, this is the perfect recipe for rhubarb that’s just a tad soft or strawberries that are a little wrinklier than they were when you bought them. That said, the fresher your fruit, the better your finished product. However, a couple of extra days between purchase and use won’t result in a bad product.

I picked up the strawberries from Hayton Farms and the rhubarb was from Alvarez Farms. I used local flour from Stone-Buhr and sugar from Idaho. The egg and the buttermilk were both from Sea Breeze Farm. So overall, these muffins were very local.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins

• 2 3/4 cup flour
• 1.5 cups brown sugar
• 2.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup strawberries
• 1 cup rhubarb

1. Preheat the oven to 400.

2. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl.

3. In a large bowl, beat the egg along with the buttermilk and the vanilla.

4. Add the dry ingredients and stir until combined.

5. Chop the strawberries and the rhubarb and fold into the batter.

6. Drop the batter into 18 muffin cups. These muffins won’t rise much, so each muffin cup should be about 3/4 full.

7. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the muffin comes out clean.

Chef’s Notes: These were quite good, although they were just a tad bit moist. Though everyone who tried one (my coworkers) liked the moisture. They weren’t sticky or mushy, but the rhubarb and the strawberries have a lot of water in them, so some of that water does seep into the muffins. I recommend cooling these on a cookie rack for at least an hour or two before storage.