(Recipe can be found on the Smitten Kitchen site here.)
Step by Step Instructions:
For the streusel that goes both in the muffins and on top of them, the following ingredients are needed: All-Purpose Flour, Granulated Sugar, Whole Wheat Flour, Kosher Salt, Butter, Brown Sugar (I used Light Brown Sugar), Nutmeg, and Cinnamon.
Some of the same ingredients go into the muffin mixture along with a few new ones: All-Purpose Flour, Granulated Sugar, Whole Wheat Flour, Kosher Salt, Butter, Light Brown Sugar, One Egg, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, and 6-8 oz. of Rhubarb (I used 4 stalks).
As usual, I do as much prep work as possible to begin with. I started by pre-heating the oven to 375 degrees. Then I melted one stick of butter. First I divided it in 3 Tablespoons and 5 Tablespoons and melted each separately since one goes in the streusel and the other in the muffin batter.
Then I softened about a Tablespoon of butter and used a pastry brush to butter each muffin tin. I needed 12 tins total, so one muffin tin pan did the trick.
Then I washed my rhubarb stalks and dried each one. With each stalk, I sliced it down the middle length-wise and then cut it into 1/2 inch pieces as you see above. I then set aside the rhubarb.
I added the dry ingredients for the streusel topping in a bowl. This included All-Purpose Flour, Whole Wheat Flour, Granulated Sugar, Brown Sugar, Cinnamon, Salt, and a dash of Freshly Grated Nutmeg.
Next the 3 Tablespoons of melted Butter was added to the dry ingredients…
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..and mixed together until it formed a crumbly mixture as you see in the photo above.
Now it’s time to begin the muffin batter. In a large bowl I added 1 egg, Light Brown Sugar and Granulated Sugar.
I whisked the mixture together.
Then I added the 5 Tablespoons of melted and cooled butter…
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..and whisked the ingredients.
Then the final wet ingredient, sour cream, was added.
The sour cream gets whisked into the mixture. Then set it aside and move onto your dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl, combine the two flours (I did 3/4 cup of each per the Cooking Note in the Smitten Kitchen’s recipe), Salt, Baking Powder and Baking Soda.
I poured the combined dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Then I stirred it together with a wooden spoon until the batter comes together. As I stated in the Cooking blog post, the mixture wasn’t as wet as I thought it would be, but that’s okay…carry on!
The batter is almost complete. It’s now time to add all of the chopped rhubarb and 1/3 of the streusel mixture.
Fold them into the batter carefully. Until combined.
Then evenly divide the batter between the 12 muffin tins. I pushed the batter down a bit with my fingers to make sure that it filled the muffin tin fully.
Evenly divide the remaining streusel among the top of each muffin. Then use the back of a spoon to push the streusel down on top of the batter so that it adheres better to the muffin.
Place the muffins in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick or tester comes out clean. You can see that the muffins rise beautifully and get a little golden on top. Let the muffins cool in the tins for 2 minutes.
Then remove the muffins from the tin and let them cool completely on a wire rack. I find that using two toothpicks to ease the muffins out of the tin works well for me. Clearly I couldn’t resist and had to dive in…so delicious. Sweet and tangy at the same time, which is a great combination!! You must try this recipe!
Whole Wheat Rhubarb Streusel Muffins:
Makes 12 Muffins
Smitten Kitchen Cooking Note: I had intended to replace the majority of the flour with white whole wheat flour. I realized when I was editing photos and saw the flour bag in the background of an image that I’d used whole wheat pastry flour instead! So, either will work. If you’re using standard whole wheat flour, for maximum tenderness I might go halvsies with the flour instead — 3/4 cup white, 3/4 cup whole wheat.
Streusel Ingredients:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Muffin Ingredients:
1 large egg
1/4 cup light or dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm
3/4 cup sour cream
1 cup white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour (see Note)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup diced rhubarb, in 1/2-inch pieces (from about 6 to 8 ounces of stalks)
Preparation Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter 12 muffin cups.
2. Make streusel: In a small dish, stir together flours, sugars, spices and salt. Stir in butter until crumbly. Set aside.
3. Make muffins: Whisk egg in the bottom of a large bowl with both sugars. Whisk in butter, then sour cream. In a separate bowl, mix together flours, salt, baking powder and baking soda and stir them into the sour cream mixture, mixing until just combined and still a bit lumpy. Fold in rhubarb and 1/3 (feel free to eyeball this) of the streusel mixture.
4. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle each muffin with remaining streusel, then use a spoon to gently press the crumbs into the batter so that they adhere. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean. Rest muffins in pan on cooling rack for two minutes, then remove muffins from tin to cool them completely.
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Wonderful muffin, Kelli! Thanks for the great recipe (and for sharing your creation). 😉