Recipe by Sarah Epps
These muffins are built on butter, eggs, and buttermilk, so they are not vegan or gluten-free. They carry the feeling of levity through Summer's stone fruit season. Bake them when apricots and rhubarb are at the farmers' market and you want a light, celebratory reason to turn on the oven, then freeze the extras for mornings that need a little lift.
Makes 12 to 16 muffins.
Ingredients
- 3 stalks rhubarb, washed, trimmed, and sliced
- 8 apricots, pitted and cut into about 12 pieces each
- ¼ c. plus 1 c. granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp. plus 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Sprinkle of good quality balsamic vinegar such as Yiayia and Friends (optional)
- ½ lemon
- Pinch plus ½ tsp. salt
- 3 c. flour
- 1 tbs. baking powder
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- 1 ½ c. unsalted butter, melted, plus extra softened butter for greasing the muffin tin
- 3 eggs (2 whole, 1 separated)
- 1 c. buttermilk
- ¼ to ½ c. whole milk
- About ½ c. plain whole milk yogurt
- Turbinado (large sugar crystals) to top
Equipment
- Muffin tin (you may need an extra pan for the overflow batter)
- Muffin tin liners (optional, makes cleanup easier, but muffin bottoms have a nice brown texture if you do not use liners)
- Small pan to melt butter
- Medium bowl for fruit
- Large bowl for dry ingredients
- Large measuring cup or medium bowl for the wet ingredients
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Pastry brush
- Cooling rack
- Sharp paring knife
Process
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Using your fingers or a paper towel, take softened butter and grease the surfaces of the muffin tin that will touch the batter (so the flat surfaces in between cups, plus the cups themselves), or use muffin liners.
- Combine the rhubarb, apricots, ¼ cup sugar, ¼ tsp. vanilla, optional vinegar, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt in a bowl and gently mix. Let the fruit macerate while you prepare the other ingredients.
- Mix all the dry ingredients together except the turbinado sugar. In a separate bowl, mix two whole eggs plus one egg yolk, reserving the extra egg white, and add the buttermilk, yogurt, melted butter, and 1 tsp. vanilla to the eggs. Mix the wet ingredients thoroughly and then add them to the dry ingredients, carefully folding them together without overmixing. Add ¼ to ½ cup milk to the batter if it is too thick. Then gently fold in the fruit.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin, mounding each cup generously. With a pastry brush, dribble some of the egg white onto each muffin top and top with large crystal sugar.
- Bake about 40 to 45 minutes until the tops are cracked and browning, and a thin knife or toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Take a sharp knife and cut each muffin into distinct shapes where the tops have melted into each other. Place a cooling rack over the top and gently invert, shaking to encourage the muffins to fall onto the rack. Gently coax the ones that do not fall out of the pan. Enjoy warm, or let cool completely, wrap in foil, seal in freezer proof bags, and store in the freezer. Reheat directly from frozen, or let thaw overnight and warm them up in the morning.
