Indulge in this sweet summer treat. Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins are made with fresh strawberries and tart rhubarb wrapped in a brown sugar buttermilk batter. The crunchy pecan streusel topping adds a fantastic texture to the moist muffins too!
If you love baking recipes with seasonal fruit, you will definitely love these muffins.
Why this recipe works:
- The muffin is incredibly moist. The fresh fruit combined with the buttermilk create a super soft muffin that melts in your mouth.
- Brown sugar is used in both the muffin batter as well as the streusel topping. This gives the entire recipe such great flavor.
- The topping gives the muffins a superb crunch that really compliments the fluffy muffins.
When fresh berries are in season, I will buy entire flats of Oregon grown Hood strawberries until the farmers run out. This is the best strawberry known to man. They're small but deep red, juicy, and sweet all the way through.
This type of strawberry isn't really ideal for baking because of the moisture - it is best for eating fresh or for making jam, but they ended up working really well in these muffins.
I will also buy abundant amounts of gorgeous red rhubarb when it's in season. If you've never cooked with fresh rhubarb, size doesn't matter but red is better than green.
Fresh rhubarb is a hard stalk similar to celery. It is extremely tart and often needs a fair amount of sugar to balance the sour.
Ingredients needed:
- Buttermilk
- Butter
- Egg
- Fresh rhubarb and strawberries
- All-purpose flour
- Brown Sugar
- Baking soda and salt
- Pecans
- Cinnamon
How to make these strawberry rhubarb muffins:
- To mix the muffin batter, you'll combine the buttermilk, melted butter, and egg with the rhubarb and strawberries. In a separate bowl, you'll combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. This will all get mixed together into a thick batter and added to the muffin pan.
- Next you will combine the chopped pecans, brown sugar, flour, cold butter, and cinnamon to form the streusel topping.
- Bake the muffins in a pre-heated oven and enjoy! These muffins won't rise up super tall and beautiful like my blueberry muffins do, but boy were they delicious!
Cooking tips:
- You can use frozen fruit instead of fresh. Just be sure to fully thaw the fruit first. Frozen strawberries will release liquid as they thaw. Only use the fruit and reserve any liquid for something else.
- Be sure the butter for the topping is very cold. You want the butter to but cut into very small pieces so that it melts as it bakes.
- Store the muffins in an air tight container. They should last a day or two on the counter but should be refrigerated or frozen for longer storage.
Related recipes:
Love the flavors of strawberry and rhubarb? Me too! Here are some of my favorites.
- Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler
- Classic Strawberry Shortcake
- Strawberry Pretzel Salad {Strawberry Pretzel Dessert}
- Fresh Strawberry Pie
- Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
- Fresh Rhubarb Pie
- Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
- Strawberry Rhubarb Coffee Cake
Full Recipe Instructions
Strawberry Rhubarb Streusel Muffins
Ingredients
muffin:
- ½ cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup butter (melted and slightly cooled)
- 1 egg
- ¾ cup fresh rhubarb (diced)
- ¾ cup fresh strawberries (diced)
- 1 ⅓ cups flour
- ⅔ cup brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
streusel topping:
- ⅓ cup chopped pecans
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- ⅓ cup all purpose flour
- ⅓ cup butter (cold and cut into small cubes)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with 12 muffin liners or grease with butter.
- To make the muffins, combine the buttermilk, melted butter and egg in large bowl. Mix well. Stir in strawberry and rhubarb.
- In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda and salt. Mix with wet ingredients and stir to combine. Do not over mix. Batter will be thick.
- To make the streusel, combine the pecans, sugar, flour, cinnamon and butter, and mix until butter becomes crumbly. A pastry cutter might be necessary to get the butter mixed. Store topping in bowl in freezer until ready to use.
- Scoop batter to fill each well about ⅔ of the way full and then top with a spoonful of streusel mixture.
- Bake in preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to sit in muffin pan once removed from the oven for about 5 minutes before transferring the muffins to a cooling rack.
Notes
- You can use frozen fruit instead of fresh. Just be sure to fully thaw the fruit first. Frozen strawberries will release liquid as they thaw. Only use the fruit and reserve any liquid for something else.
- Be sure the butter for the topping is very cold. You want the butter to but cut into very small pieces so that it melts as it bakes.
- Store the muffins in an air tight container. They should last a day or two on the counter but should be refrigerated or frozen for longer storage.
NUTRITION INFORMATION
This recipe was originally published in July 2014 and has been updated with helpful information, ingredient and process photos, as well as recipe tips. Don't worry - the recipe hasn't changed!
Karen
To make jumbo muffins, do I double the recipe?
Krissy
Yes, but you will need to increase the baking time too.
Sheila Smith
I haven’t made these yet and they look like a great recipe! I’m going to add nutmeg to the batter and bake them in muffin top tin. Everyone I know loves the muffin top version because of the delicious crispy tops! Regardless, you cannot go wrong with muffins or muffin tops! I’ll report how it goes!
Patty
Hi Krissy
I am a out to make these delicious looking muffins. Do you know if they freeze well? Thanks, Patty
Krissy
Yep! Just make sure they're fully cooled before you freeze them. I like to wrap them tightly to keep the air out.
Shari
Should the streusel have flour in it. I tried making these, but trying to get the mixture crumbly wasn't working. I decided to add some flour. I still didn't get enough in it. My muffins are a hot mess. I put cupcake liners in the pan, the butter from the topping is all melted and has soaked the liners and left little puddles of butter in the muffin tins.
Krissy
Oh dear. Now I feel like a hot mess! It's been awhile since I've made these muffins but I can't imagine not having the flour in the topping either. I'm gonna go back and add it to the recipe. I'm so sorry!!!
ann
you eliminated the amount of cinnamon needed for the topping from the list of ingredients
Krissy
Doh! Sorry about that. Fixed!
Gillian Fozard
Would like to try this recipe but don't know what 1/2 cube of butter is. Our comes in a solid package. Always looking for new rhubarb recipes.
Thanks
Gill
Krissy
4 tablespoons.
Colleen
Just stumbled across this recipe as I’m trying to use up rhubarb from the garden. How much butter should be in the muffin batter? It’s listed as “¼ half a cube of butter”... is that ⅛ of a stick of butter?
Krissy
Hi Colleen, Sorry about that! I switch software that messed up a couple of my recipes. I went ahead and updated and it should look much better now. I meant for it to read 1/4 cup butter (half a stick). Thanks for bringing it to my attention! Krissy