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Bakery style streusel-topped Rhubarb Muffins are tender, studded with tangy rhubarb bits, and topped with a crunchy brown sugar streusel.
Rhubarb Muffins
These Bakery Style Rhubarb Streusel Muffins have a beautiful high dome covered in crisp brown sugar cinnamon streusel and are a perfect weekend treat!
Truthfully, they make a great treat any time at all, because this is a quick bread recipe that you can make in just a few minutes.
All the ingredients are simple items you probably already have in your pantry. The rhubarb is going to be your hardest-to-find ingredient.
I can usually find mine at several of the little farmstands in our area. Otherwise, a big supermarket should have it this time of year.
Muffin Making Tips
Here are a couple of muffin-making tips that will yield tall, tender rhubarb streusel muffins. (These apply to any type of muffin actually).
DO NOT over stir the batter. You are going to just barely combine the wet and dry ingredients. There should still be many streaks of flour. Over-stirring will result in tough muffins.
When you add the rubharb, it’s going to add a lot of moisture to the recipe. TRUST THE PROCESS, and again, do NOT overmix the batter. Overmixing will yield super dense, tough muffins.
Start baking the muffins at a high temperature for several minutes. This activates the baking powder and creates that nice high dome on top of the muffin. Then turn the oven down to a moderate temperature (350°F) to finish baking them.
They are great to eat warm, but most muffins are best the next day and will be moister after sitting covered for at least several hours.
Can I Freeze Rhubarb?
YES! Go ahead and freeze some while it is in season, that way you can enjoy rhubarb treats year-round.
To use frozen rhubarb in recipes, thaw the rhubarb and drain it, but do not press out the excess liquid. Bake as directed in the recipe.
Rhubarb Muffin Recipe
- Make the streusel by melting the butter and stirring in the flour, brown sugar, and salt until crumbly. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 400°F and line a muffin tin with 12 muffin liners. Stir together the 3 tablespoons brown sugar and diced rhubarb in a small bowl, set aside. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt in a large bowl and set aside.
- Beat together the butter, sour cream, milk, eggs, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently stir together. Do not over mix, there should still be streaks of flour. Gently stir in the rhubarb.
- Divide the batter between the muffin tins, (sometimes it makes enough for 13-14 muffins) and then top with the streusel. Bake at 400°F for 5 minutes. Then, without opening the oven, turn the heat down to 350°F and bake for 12-15 more minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Be sure to check out a few more rhubarb recipes, while it’s in season! Don’t miss Old fashioned Rhubarb Pie, Rhubarb Coffee Cake, Rhubarb Bars, and Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp.
And for a couple more quick bread recipes to try, I recommend the Blueberry Lemon Bread and the Cinnamon Roll Bread.
If you love strawberries paired with your rhubarb, check out these Strawberry Rhubarb Streusel Muffins from Self Proclaimed Foodie.
And if you want to double dose on your rhubarb, why not slather on some of this strawberry rhubarb jam from Flavor the Moments.
Rhubarb Streusel Muffins
Ingredients
For the Streusel topping
- 3 tablespoons butter melted
- ¾ cup all purpose flour
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
For the Muffins
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2½ cups finely diced rhubarb approximately ¼-inch in size
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup melted butter
- 1 cup sour cream or plain Greek Yogurt
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Make the streusel by melting the butter and stirring in the flour, brown sugar, and salt until crumbly. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 400°F and line a muffin tin with paper muffin liners. Stir together the 3 tablespoons brown sugar and diced rhubarb in a small bowl, set aside. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt in a large bowl and set aside.
- Beat together the butter, sour cream, milk, eggs, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently stir together. DO NOT OVER MIX, there should still be many streaks of flour. Gently stir in the rhubarb along with any juices in the bowl.
- Divide the batter between the muffin tins, and top with the streusel. Bake at 400°F for 5 minutes. Then, without opening the oven, turn the heat down to 350°F and bake for 12-15 more minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. (Depending on the size of your muffins, you may need a longer baking time – test for doneness and adjust as needed.)
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
{originally published 5/17/18 – recipe notes and photos updated 3/24/22}
Double Crumb Rhubarb Coffee Cake
Thanks for sharing! Do they keep freeze well?
These look so good! What a great breakfast meal prep for the week!
Think the 3 cups flour should be 2. Mine are in the oven but I’m not holding out much hope for them. Terrible consistency. Waste of my time and ingredients
Can I ask how you measured your flour? It should be spooned and leveled, not scooped.
Hey Jenna, when baking you almost have to treat the recipe like a science project and measuring the flour is essential to the perfect consistency! I find that if I sift the flour, then scoop gently with a spoon into my measuring cup there is much less flour than if you just scoop packed flour from the container in the the measuring cup. Also, I have made the mistake of using expired baking powder and that made a big difference haha! Hope this helps! Try them again! I’ve been making this recipe for a long time now and it is now a household staple and every time I bring them somewhere, they are gobbled up immediately! I also use 3 cups of rhubarb because…well, its the best! Good luck!
Does everyone else have concerns about the batter being much too thick? I ended up having to bake much longer than instructed in recipe…anyone made any adjustments for future try’s?
Can I ask how you measured your flour? It should be spooned and leveled, not scooped.
The recommended baking time is not long enough. They actually took about 50 minutes in my oven. However, we all LOVED these muffins and I will definitely make them again. It’s a YES from my crew!
I had a few concerns but it wasn’t the baking time. Mine were done putting them 5 minutes on 400 and about 15 on the 35O.
Did you make standard size muffins? That is what I did and I got 18 out of it.
I’m waiting for these to come out of the oven right now. I have a tried and true apple cinnamon muffin recipe, which in retrospect, I wish I’d used and just traded in the apples for the rhubarb (they take an hour to bake) and there’s no way this recipe is ready in the 5 minutes at 400 degrees/then 15 minutes at 350 degrees. I put them on for an extra 10 minutes and they still aren’t ready. Now I’m waiting to see what happens after another 15. Fingers crossed! I will be disappointed if I burn them.
I was glad to read that other people had issue with the batter that was better described as dough. The topping was probably the easiest but not what I was expecting I thought it usually had oats in it as well but presentation is okay. Cooking time was much longer. Maybe next time I will try 1 cup less flour. The jury is out on these as they are still in the oven.
Hey, Mallory!
Holly is going to try your rhubarb muffin recipe for supper tonight!
That’s exciting to hear! I’ve had some trouble with them being dry. let me know how they are and I may rework the recipe.
Thanks for sharing, Mallory! I’ve never had rhubarb before making this recipe so I really dont have anything to conpare it to, but I did enjoy these muffins and so did my husband. To me, the rhubarb tastes similar to apple in the muffin. I do agree with the previous comment that the batter was very thick with a glue-like texture which I was not expecting and they did take about 30 mins total to bake trough. I was also able to get 18 miffins which is a plus in my book! Thanks for giving me my first taste of Rhubarb!
I’m an experienced home-baker and I was not happy with this recipe. There seems to be too much dry ingredient compared to wet ingredient and it resulted in a batter that was thick and glue-like. It was difficult to get the batter into muffin tins and it needed a much longer baking time than the recipe suggested. Even the streusel topping didn’t seem right to me (not enough butter).
Exactly!!! Wish I had read your review first… my sentiments exactly!!! Then it made 24 normal sized muffins, not 12. I use an ice cream scoop usually to keep even, but the batter was very very thick, I thought I’d missed something., the topping too crumbly… needed more butter, needed more time. And honestly I thought it needed a little more sugar for a rhubarb recipe, for my taste anyway. Super disappointed.
Perhaps you are not as experienced as you think you are. I just made these as directed and they were perfect and delicious!!!
Kay- did you follow the recipe exactly? I was thinking I’d make these tomorrow- but want them to turn out great!
Thanks ?
Karie – If you follow the directions as written you should not have any issues. I hope you enjoy the muffins!
OMG yes, I agree Bethany!!! My batter is more like a dough than a batter & I’ve looked the recipe over 3 times & had my husband AND daughter look it over to see if I missed or overlooked something & I didn’t!! I added more milk to make it thin enough to at least spoon into my muffin tins!!! Batter tastes good but the dry ingredients definitely need adjustments!!!
It is a thicker batter but remember the rhubarb has quite a bit of moisture that gets absorbed while baking.