Rhubarb Muffins

Mmmm.... Home from the movies (Days and Clouds - darkly tough, but good, by the director of "Pane e Tulipani" - Bread and Tulips).

I'm snarfing a late-night dessert - or, I should say - taste-testing one of the Rhubarb muffins for breakfast. Seeing as I missed the Week of Retro Baking, due to the Week of Viral Sniffling, here's a belated recipe: this one came to me via Mom and Dad, winkled out of a B&B in Canada, went to a friend who writes a newspaper column and was in a deadline panic - and then it ended up in one of Nigella Lawson's cookbooks, Feast. Don't believe me? See p 194 - my credit! (We both did an extremely silly little dance when we found out, and I still haven't gotten over it.) More about that friend and her fabulous cooking adventures in a post coming to you soon...

Stop blathering about your one and only claim to fame, gal: produce the goods!

Here it is: North American-style cup measures. (For English weighed measures, ask Ms. Lawson.)

Rhubarb Muffins

1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk or plain yogourt (I usually use low-fat yogourt)
1 1/2 cups diced rhubarb
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional: I leave them out because I'm allergic to them)
2 cups flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Sugar and cinnamon for the topping

Heat the oven to 400 degrees and grease (or line) 12 muffin cups. (We use natty Canadian flag papers, eh?)

Mix brown sugar, egg, oil, vanilla and buttermilk or yogourt in a large bowl. Stir in the rhubarb.

In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together, then stir them into the wet ingredients just until combined. (It will be runny and look rather soupy, but don't worry).

Fill the muffin cups generously. Mix together 3-4 tablespoons of sugar with 1/4 tsp cinnamon (or to taste - depends on how much you like cinnamon!) Sprinkle the sugar mix onto the wet muffin mix in the tin - it will form a lovely crunchy crust when the muffins are baked.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Then try not to snarf them all! Mmm-MM!