Rhubarb Almond Muffins -- a taste of spring #recipe by @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  I met a friend for lunch recently and she brought a bag full of rhubarb, a welcome gift since mine wasn’t ready yet. I adore breakfast for lunch, and ordered a Greek omelet with a raspberry almond muffin. It was so good that I got the idea to recreate the muffin with rhubarb. 

Good idea! This recipe is a combination of a couple I found, plus a few twists of my own. Next time, I’ll give it another twist, adding a few gratings of fresh orange peel to highlight the sweet-tart flavor combo. 

These are light and cakey, and using both baking soda and baking powder makes them rise beautifully above the rim of the tin. That makes them wonderfully showy, whether you pair them with a big fluffy omelet or the perfect cup of coffee. 

Rhubarb Almond Muffins

For the muffins:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

6 tablespoons unsalted butter 

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup buttermilk OR 3/4 cup plain yogurt + 1/4 cup milk or water

2 cups rhubarb, diced

For the topping:

sprinkling sugar or turbinado sugar (coarse raw sugar) 

sliced almonds

Heat the oven to 350ºF. Spray a 12-well muffin tin with nonstick spray or line with liners. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. 

In a small bowl, melt the butter. Whisk in the eggs, almond extract, and buttermilk or yogurt and milk, then add to the dry ingredients and mix until combined and no dry streaks remain. Add the diced rhubarb and combine. 

Scoop the dough into the muffin tin, filling about 3/4 full. Sprinkle tops with sugar and sliced almonds. 

Bake 22-25 minutes, or until springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool slightly before removing from the pan. Serve warm.

Makes 12 muffins. 

Rhubarb strawberry pie is a classic! What's your favorite way to enjoy this short-lived burst of spring?  

From the cover of BLIND FAITH, written as Alicia Beckman (in hardcover, ebook, and audio from Crooked Lane Books, October 2022)  

Long-buried secrets come back with a vengeance in a cold case gone red-hot in Agatha Award-winning author Alicia Beckman’s second novel, perfect for fans of Laura Lippman and Greer Hendricks.

Two women whose paths crossed in Montana years ago discover they share keys to a deadly secret that exposes a killer—and changes everything they thought they knew about themselves. 

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries and the Spice Shop Mysteries, continuing in July 2023 with Between a Wok and a Dead Place. She's the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories. Death al Dente, the first Food Lovers' Village Mystery, won Best First Novel in 2013, following her 2011 win in Best Nonfiction. Her first historical short story, "All God's Sparrows," won the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Short Story. As Alicia Beckman, she writes standalone suspense, beginning with Bitterroot Lake (2021) and continuing with Blind Faith (October 2022, Crooked Lane Books).

A past president of Sisters in Crime and a current board member of Mystery Writers of America, she lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by her website and subscribe to her seasonal newsletter, for a chat about the writing life, what she's working on, and  what she's reading -- and a free short story. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.