Rhubarb Muffins

These are what I like to call "Early Morning Muffin Impulse Decisions."

It's what happens when you wake up ten minutes before your alarm goes off and the sun is streaming through your windows and your mind is thinking about how your neighbor mentioned making rhubarb muffins with sugary tops and how you totally have a recipe in your big, beautiful Nigella Lawson cookbook for rhubarb muffins with sugary tops and how you totally have a garden overflowing with rhubarb right now and how slightly crazy but awesome you would be for making fresh muffins before running out the door to two early morning appointments and just how dang much you love muffins!

This is my mind. You are always welcome to join :) Please do, I'll even give you a fresh muffin.

Fresh rhubarb from the garden, what what! I'm almost starting to forget that I ever hated the stuff. The vast amounts of cinnamon and sugar on the tops of these sure helps though.

And walnuts! Because adding nuts can only make things BETTER.

I also made a mini-loaf version! Because I have the pans and just dang wanted to. Variety is the spice of life they say. Variety, and cinnamon.

I hope you make an Early Morning Muffin Impulse Decision sometime soon. You will not regret it. Worst case scenario, you get fresh muffins. And that's not such a bad case to be in. Just add coffee! Or tea. Or a skim milk latte from Second cup in between doctors appointments :)

Rhubarb Muffins with Cinnamon Sugar Tops

Recipe from Nigella Lawson's Feast (Who has yet to disappoint me)

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 175g rhubarb, cut into 1 cm cubes
• 75g walnuts roughly chopped
• 300g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch salt
• 50g wheat germ
• 2 tbsp turbinado sugar (just use granulated if you don't have turbinado)
• 1 tsp cinnamon

1) Whisk together the brown sugar, oil, egg, vanilla and buttermilk.

2)In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and wheat germ.

3) Combine the wet and the dry ingredients, but don't over mix! Over-mixing equals tough muffins. We are going for tender, not tough.

4)Gently fold in the walnuts and the rhubarb.

5) Scoop the batter into paper-lined muffin or mini loaf tins.

6) In a small dish, combine the turbinado and the cinnamon. Sprinkle this mixture GENEROUSLY (YES) over the tops of the muffins.

7) Bake at 350! My muffins took about 20 minutes, and my loaf was just under 30 minutes or so. Better to check them earlier just to be sure.

8)The fresher you eat these the better because the tops will be their crunchiest! Which might sound weird, but it's really the best. Although they are still absolutely delicious the next day, and the next, and the next... mmmmm. Muffins.

<3 Lari