Rhubarb-Ginger Muffin Tops

I have a thing for muffins.  Have I mentioned that before? Probably.  I don’t actually purchase them very often because they tend to be oversized, oversweetened, overpriced, and honestly I usually think I can make a better muffin than the one I paid for.  Recently, however, I ended up at a local bakery/cafe, a pillar in the community that has been around for something like thirty years, just minutes after they opened.  I was hungry.  I’m one of those people who is actually hungry for breakfast and can usually eat it no matter what time I get up in the morning.

So you know what? I got myself a still-warm blueberry muffin because honestly, how often am I at a bakery right when they open, hungry? It was delicious. I was inspired.

My parents have a rhubarb patch in their garden every year and my Mom had just given me a large bunch of stalks, so in they went.  This was my first venture in combining rhubarb and ginger and it worked beautifully, visually and taste-fully.

Muffin tops are just muffin batter baked on a sheet, cookie-style.  I wasn’t in the mood to wash muffin tins and the top of the muffin is the best part anyway, am I right? Tell me you’ve seen the Seinfeld episode about muffin tops.  Top ‘O the Muffin.  Come on.

Muffin tops look like scones but taste like muffins.  You can’t go wrong!  These are full of fruit and ginger and spice.  They’re not overly sweet, containing just the perfect amount of sugar to sweeten the rhubarb.  A scrumptious, healthy summer breakfast.

Rhubarb-Ginger Muffin Tops

Makes 10 muffin tops

Ingredients:

1 cup pastry flour

1 cup old-fashioned oats

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

2 Tablespoons ground flax + 6 Tablespoons warm water

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 Tablespoons candied ginger, chopped

1 cup chopped rhubarb, sweetened with 2 Tablespoons sugar, honey, preserves, etc.

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine rhubarb with sweetener of choice in a small bowl and set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine flour, oats, baking powder and soda and spices.

In another bowl, combine flax eggs (real eggs can also be used), sugar, oil, and applesauce and stir until everything is incorporated.

Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until combined.

Fold in rhubarb and 2 Tablespoons of the candied ginger.

Divide batter into ten portions on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  They will each be roughly 1/4 cup worth of batter.

Top each muffin top with a few pieces of candied ginger.

Bake for 25 minutes.

-Anne Calista

Catching Up

So.  Blogging has sort of fallen by the wayside, as they say, for me lately.  I don’t really know what happened.  I have been pretty busy, but that’s not really an excuse.  I started a new job, which miraculously involves making cake and eating cheese and tasting wine and does not involve taking orders and cleaning up after messy kids and remembering who ordered a water with NO ice and NO lemon and who ordered a coffee with milk and two packets of equal.  I’m still cooking and baking and enjoying those things and talking about those things, but for some reason I haven’t had the urge to blog about them.  But here I am, and here’s what I’ve been up to.

I made it to Milk Bar.  I went there three times in two days, ate this amazing veggie bun topped with an egg, and some cereal milk soft serve. For real.  It was cray-cray.

I love you, Milk Bar.  I also made it to Noodle bar and loved every bite I had there.  I shared this ramen bowl with two others, along with some spicy noodles and the octopus.  If you’re in New York City, you must make it to Momofuku!

I ventured out to Minnesota and visited my Grandma there.  She has these great old olive oil containers on top of her stove, holding lots of utensils.  I like the look of them.

We ate grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, and I snuck some avocado onto mine.  My grandma tried avocado for the first time.  She didn’t like it, and I don’t understand that.

I did not get to eat at this cafe, but I loved their sign.  “Sun Shine Cafe – It is small but you will like it a lot!”.

This bar totally belongs in Duluth.

These little nuggets of goodness are something I whipped up the other day when I needed some chocolate.  I scoured my kitchen and the only chocolate I had was unsweetened baking chocolate and raw cacao nibs.  For real?  I went for the cacao, and blended about 2/3 cup of it with 1 cup of raisins and 2 teaspoons of coconut oil in my food processor.  It becomes like a dough and I just rolled it into balls and then rolled the balls in unsweetened shredded coconut.  These are best when they can firm up in the fridge for awhile, since the texture is nicer and the chocolate flavor comes out a little more when they are chilled.  I think I ate two before they made it in the fridge. And then two more later.

In other news, I started a garden! These are my tomato starts, and I am so, so excited about them.  I can’t wait to eat tomatoes that I grew all by myself.  It’s the first year that I’m really trying to garden.  I had a little garden last year but I didn’t really keep up with it.  This year I’m serious.  I’ll keep you posted.

-Anne Calista