Rhubarb Butterscotch Muffins
Our rhubarb had been growing all summer long in a partly shady spot, just giant folds of lush, green leaves piling on top of each other in casual competition. Supposedly rhubarb is a late spring to midsummer harvest, normally coinciding with strawberries — hence the classic strawberry rhubarb pie combination. Ours missed the memo. Perhaps the shade helped preserve it from drying out. I had always been meaning to harvest it, but given it’s astronomically bright tartness, it needs a gallon of sweetener to balance it out, so the options are normally limited to dessert type things.
On the other side of the frequency spectrum, we had found the need for oodles of car snacks for carpooling the girls into school every day. Mini banana muffins with cinnamon were a big hit, so we could almost make them with our eyes closed. With a dash of inspiration, we had a thought: stewed rhubarb is roughly the same texture as banana. Which non-strawberry flavors go well with rhubarb? We broke out the new favorite Flavor Bible and caramel was in bold. The Old Testament, the Joy Of Cooking, had a recipe for butterscotch right next to the caramel. With a bit of moisture, sugar, and fat calculations, we could figure this out!
We didn’t really do the calculations. Heavy cream wasn’t measured, butter was approximate since it was in a giant brick, and as with every sweet bread or pancake, cinnamon was just thrown on. But what turned out was a delightfully sweet-tart summer muffin, bright and joyful with hints of caramel! It spoke to us, and said “eat another. Or two more.” While taking photos for this recipe, some muffins were misplaced into our mouths. We think you’ll enjoy them too.
Muffins & quick breads are all the same, just in different forms. Flour, sugar, and baking soda and/or powder are added to amoist, lightly egged flavoring, then baked. We made mini muffins out of this, but you could make regular muffins (bake almost twice as long) or a tea loaf (bake almost an hour).
Rhubarb
about a half dozen rhubarb stalks
Rinse the rhubarb and chop into roughly 1 inch long chunks. Set in a large saucepan over medium heat and stir occasionally. The rhubarb will begin to break down and release moisture. When stirring, scrape the bottom of the pan so it doesn’t stick too much. Continue with the rest of the recipe while this is stewing casually, although be sure to turn off the heat when the rhubarb has fallen apart enough to look like a fruit preserves; a few soft chunks of rhubarb are fine and welcome, as long as they’re the size that you wouldn’t mind finding buried in your muffin.
Butterscotch
8 tbsp unsalted butter
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
Warm in a large saucepan over low heat until the butter has melted completely.
Stir in until dissolved:
1 cup sugar
Get staged next to the stove:
1 cup heavy cream
Increase the heat to medium-high and, without stirring, boil until it begins to color around the edges, about 5-10 minutes. Start stirring gently to distribute the strands of color. Watch the color carefully; boiling sugar can change state very quickly. It should darken a few times until it’s a solid but not dark brown, like a dark wildflower honey. Turn off the heat, and knowing that this will bubble rapidly and possibly splatter, add in the heavy cream slowly while constantly stirring. Continue stirring until all the bubbling stops.
Stir in next until mixed and dissolved:
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
Let cool while moving on to the batter.
Batter
Our preference is often a half/half whole wheat and white flour, to make it a bit more robust and less of a sugar bomb. But you can make yours as you desire.
Hopefully at this point the rhubarb is off and cooling. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease your muffin tins, mini muffin pan, or loaf pan.
Whisk together in a small bowl:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
~ 2 tsp cinnamon, ish
Beat together in a mixer:
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
Measure out 2 cups of the cooled rhubarb, making sure it’s not hot enough to cook the egg; save the rest for adding to yogurt & syrup, ice cream, etc. Add to the mixer; beat until mixed, or beat some more if there are still some larger chunks of rhubarb you want to break up.
Now you can check your butterscotch, and perhaps take a pause until the butterscotch cools enough to add without cooking the egg; say, 120 F or cooler. Add all the butterscotch to the mixer and mix until, well, mixed.
Somehow get your batter into your pan; for our mini muffins, we have a small scooper with a spring wiper that works great (what are those called?). Don’t forget that they’ll rise gently in the oven. Sprinkle the tops with baking sparkling sugar or some other topping if you wish. Bake for the appropriate time, say 15-20 for mini muffins, 30-35 for large muffins, or up to 60 for a loaf. Bake until the usual signal (when a batter skewer comes out clean). Let cool until warm before decanting.
