Another day with Rhubarb & Strawberry

I’ve been trying to decide what to do with the rhubarb we picked up last week. I was missing one of the essentials for the savory rhubarb dish (mustard seed!), so it was back to the sweet stuff (for now). I decided to try making strawberry rhubarb muffins this time around since I had already made the crumble last week and was looking for something a little different.

There are a few recipes online for strawberry rhubarb muffins, and I grabbed one from the Robin Hood Flour website and then modified the heck out of it.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups white flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup earth balance, melted
1/4 cup apple sauce in lieu of 1 egg (which added a nice lightly sweet tart flavour, and increased the moisture level of the finished product)
1 cup non-dairy buttermilk (recipe below – it’s easy!)
1 cup rhubarb, chopped
1 cup strawberries, chopped

Non-dairy Buttermilk 
1 tbsp lemon juice (or white/apple cider vinegar)
almost 1 cup almond milk.

Add 1 tbsp lemon juice into a 1 cup glass measuring cup, fill to the 1 cup line with whatever milk you like (Just not rice milk, it’s too thin. I used almond and it turned out great) and let it sit for about ten minutes. You should end up with a clumpy sour milk mixture.

Cinnamon Sugar Topping
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).
• Lightly grease your muffin cups
• Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a medium sized bowl. 
• In a large mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients for the batter.
• Add the dry ingredients, to the large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly just until moistened. (not too much or else your muffins will be like bricks).
• Spoon into muffin cups until about 3/4 full, crumble cinnamon sugar on top and put the pan in the oven.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes or until tops are firm.

I made bigger muffins, so the baking process was slightly different. I kept the muffins in for around 45 minutes, so if you make 6 big muffins instead of 12, don’t be surprised if it takes a while for the muffins to finish baking.
These make an excellent breakfast or pre-breakfast snack, some alterations I was thinking about but didn’t end up doing: Adding a little bit of fresh chopped ginger to the mix or replacing half the sugar with maple syrup and adjusting the milk balance. Maybe next time.