Colm O'Gorman: Try my easy rhubarb and orange crumble muffins

Freshly-baked muffins trump dense, store-bought buns any day

Muffins are delicious to whet one's appetite before brunch.

The weather has been a bit miserable of late, it certainly has not felt much like summer where I am. We have not cooked or eaten outside for about a month now, which is unusual for us at this time of year. I keep looking at the forecast and hoping for a clear weekend so that I can get the pizza oven or barbecue out and have some friends over for a lazy afternoon in the garden. Maybe July will be better?

In the meantime, I will focus on brunch rather than barbecues. I love brunch. It is such a social meal; a late breakfast with family and friends for a lazy weekend. The choice of dishes is endless. Pancakes maybe, or shakshuka, or eggs benedict, or some potato cakes as part of a traditional fry-up? I love serving up sharing platters for brunch, piling up the middle of the table, and letting everyone help themselves. I often make muffins to serve as a sort of starter or side to my main brunch dishes.

A freshly-baked muffin is a thing of beauty. I am not a fan of the shop-bought variety. Muffins need to be eaten fresh; on the day they are baked. They do not store well, and shop-bought muffins are usually rather dense and heavy by the time they get to you. Freshly made muffins though are light and fluffy and delicious.

These rhubarb and orange crumble muffins are full of the flavours of summer. Rhubarb is still in season and easy to find right now, and it pairs beautifully with orange. The cinnamon and almond crumble on top give a lovely additional texture to the muffin, it crowns it off perfectly. If you are cooking for a crowd, you can prep these a little in advance by weighing and combining your dry ingredients, grating the orange zest and juicing the orange, preparing the rhubarb and mixing the crumble for the topping. Then all you will have left to do is melt the butter, whisk the egg, combine all the wet ingredients, and then mix up your batter before you pop the muffins in to bake for eighteen minutes. Your kitchen will smell incredible as they bake, no better way to work up the appetite of your guests!

This recipe makes about 10-12 muffins depending upon the size of the trays you use. I recommend using a deeper muffin tray if you can get hold of them. They are more generous in size, but also bake more evenly.

Rhubarb and orange crumble muffins

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

A decadent morning treat

Servings

12

Preparation Time

 50 mins

Cooking Time

 18 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 8 mins

Course

 Baking

Cuisine

 Irish

Ingredients

• 225g fresh rhubarb

• 125g sugar

• 225g plain flour

• 2 ½ tsp baking powder

• ¼ tsp grated nutmeg

• 1 large egg

• 125 ml milk

• 80g of melted butter

• 1 orange

• 1 tsp vanilla essence

•  

• For the crumble topping:

• 40g butter

• 40g soft brown sugar

• 40g flour

• 1/2tsp cinnamon

• 2 tbsp flaked almonds

Method

1. Wash and trim the rhubarb. Cut the stalks in half lengthways and then chop those into one-centimetre chunks. Put the chopped rhubarb into a bowl along with 50g of the caster sugar and stir to combine well. Set it aside and let it stand for fifteen minutes. Heat your oven to 195 Celsius.

2. Make the crumble topping. Cut the butter into small chunks. Combine the soft brown sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon in a bowl then rub them together with your fingertips you get a nice clumpy crumb. Mix in the flaked almonds and set to one side for now.

3. Combine all the dry ingredients for the muffins, that is the flour, the remaining 75g of caster sugar and the baking powder, together in a large bowl.

4. Zest the orange and juice one half of it. Melt the butter. Lightly beat the egg in a bowl, and then add the milk, melted butter, orange juice and zest and the vanilla essence, and whisk them a little to combine them thoroughly.

5. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix both together using a spoon. Do not over-mix the batter. It is fine if it is a little lumpy and not too smooth. If you over-mix the batter your muffins will be tough and may not bake evenly. Now add the rhubarb, folding it onto the batter. Again, do not over-mix it, just fold in the rhubarb to spread it throughout the batter.

6. Spoon the batter into muffin trays. I use silicone muffin trays that work brilliantly for me. My muffins never stick and bake very evenly. If you are using metal trays, line them with paper, or butter the insides before adding the batter.

7. Finally, spoon some of the crumble over each muffin, and pop them in the oven. Bake at 195 Celsius for eighteen minutes until the muffins have risen, are firm to the touch and the crumble is crisp and golden.

8. When you take them out of the oven, let the muffins cool for ten minutes before removing them from the trays. Then, if you can resist tearing into them straight away, let them cool for another twenty minutes on a wire rack. These muffins taste even better once they have cooled down a little as this will allow all the flavour of the fruit to come through. Serve immediately.