These strawberry rhubarb sour cream muffins with streusel topping are incredibly soft, moist, and packed with sweet strawberries and tart rhubarb in every bite. The sour cream gives them a tender crumb, while the buttery maple streusel adds the perfect crunch on top.
How This Recipe Was Created
I want to share with you my inspiration for this recipe. In looking for a muffin recipe I loved the one I found at the blog, A Pretty Life in the Suburbs. The batter for the muffin is exactly what I was looking for - it contained sour cream!
Over the years I have tweaked the recipe for the batter by increasing the amount of salt by ¼ teaspoon and adding way more fruit. The increase in salt doesn't make the muffins taste salty, it just enhances the flavors that are already there.
The crumble topping in the Pretty Life recipe contained pecans, which I am not really a fan of. I looked for more inspiration and love the recipe I found from the blog, The Faux Martha. This recipe contained AP and whole wheat flour as some maple syrup and spices - right up my alley.
These muffins are the best muffins I ever made! We look forward to them every year after we u-pick strawberries.
They are moist, filled with fruit in every bite. The tartness of the rhubarb adds great balance to the sweetness of the muffin. The crumble topping is the icing on the cake, without being actual icing on an actual cake 🙂
Let me show you how to make them!
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🛒 Ingredients
Let me give you a hand with shopping for the ingredients for these muffins, starting with the star of the show, the sour cream!
❓ Why Sour Cream? - This is one of the easiest ways to upgrade a muffin. It adds richness and moisture without thinning out the batter. The acid in the sour cream reacts with the baking soda to give a better rise. It also helps the muffins to stay moist longer so they keep better after baking. Always use full fat sour cream, no reduced fat or low fat.
Here is everything else you will need:
- Flour - The batter for the muffins just uses all-purpose flour, but for the streusel topping I mix in some white whole wheat flour to add a little more flavor. Plus it gives the topping a little more structure, so it is not too crumbly.
- Brown sugar - You will need it for both the batter and the topping. You can use whatever you like but I think dark brown sugar adds more flavor.
- Kosher salt - Adding salt to baked good will bring out the flavor. We don't use too much that the muffins will taste salty.
- Baking soda - This is what will give your muffins their lift.
- Butter - The butter is for adding fat to the topping, and helping it to stick together.
- Oil - There is no butter in the batter itself. Oil is used to make the muffins soft and tender.
- Egg - For added structure to the muffin. You will just need one egg.
- Cinnamon - I discovered the Royal Cinnamon from Burlap & Barrel and find it to be the best cinnamon on the market.
- Nutmeg - Whenever I call for nutmeg, I am talking about buying whole nutmeg and grating it yourself. It's like grinding your own peppercorns instead of using already ground - it will give you way more flavor.
- Maple syrup - Adding 2 tbsp of maple syrup to your topping will give it another layer of flavor. Make sure to use real maple syrup, not pancake syrup.
🍓 The Fruit - While you can make these muffin any time of the year it is best to make them when you can get both fresh strawberries and fresh rhubarb in their peak season. If you want to learn more about when that is check out these blog posts - When Is the Best Season to Buy Strawberries and When is Rhubarb Season?
📋 How to Make the Topping
The recipe begins with making that delicious streusel topping.
- Start by combining the flour, sugar, spices, and salt in a mixing bowl.
- I always use freshly grated nutmeg. It's miles ahead of the ground stuff. My Microplane Zester Grater makes grating easy. Just place it over the bowl and grate away. You can eye ball it - I like A LOT!
- Melt the butter in the microwave. Allow to cool before mixing in the maple syrup. Then pour it on top and mix it in until you have a lumpy, bumpy dough. That's perfect!
- Set it aside. It's time to make the batter for the muffins.
👩🏻🍳 How to Make the Muffin Batter
Let me walk you through how to put this batter together. No special equipment needed.
- I learned from Alton Brown that this is called the Muffin Method. You mix together the dry ingredients (flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt) in one bowl.
- Then you mix together the wet ingredients (sour cream, oil, and egg) in another vessel.
- Dice up 1 ½ cups worth of fresh rhubarb. You want bite sized pieces.
- I quarter or half the strawberries. If you are using grocery store bought berries that are larger you may need to cut them into 8 pieces.
- Add the wet ingredients on top of the dry ingredients. Then add the fruit on top.
- Mix it all together to just bring the dough together. If there are any lumps don't worry about it, they will work themselves out when baked. You don't want to over mix, that will make the muffins tough.
⏲️ How Long Do They Take to Bake?
Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.
- Dish the muffins out into a muffin pan lined with cupcake wrappers. Using the wrappers makes the pan a lot easier to clean afterwards, and you don't need to spray the pan with any oil.
- I find that I am getting about 14-15 muffins out of this batter. You can bake the first 12, and then do the 2-3 more in the same pan. Or if you have another pan use it.
Evenly distribute the crumble topping onto the muffins before baking. I like my crumbles to be all different sizes, as I think it makes for a better appearance. Plus I love when you get a big crumble to bite into.
♻️ Substitutions
Here is a list of some ingredients you can substitue with in this recipe at a 1:1 ratio.
All-Purpose Flour -> Gluten Free Flour - Wherever wheat flour is called for in the recipe use a gluten free flour mix. My favorite is Jessica's
- Sour Cream --> Greek Yogurt - You can use plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Use the same exact amount (½ cup)
- Maple Syrup --> Honey - I have used honey in the crumble topping before instead of the maple syrup and it turned out great.
- Oil - The last time I made these muffins I used canola oil, but you can use vegetable oil, grape seed oil, sunflower oil, etc. You want an oil that is mild in taste, so it doesn't affect the taste of the muffins. Extra virgin olive oil or any strong nut oil would throw off the flavor.
- Frozen Fruit - If you want to use frozen rhubarb and/or strawberries feel free to do so. They need to be cut small to be used in the muffins, so that might be difficult with frozen fruit as it often isn't small enough for this recipe. You might need to thaw them out some before you add to the muffins. Just make sure if you do that you drain any extra liquid so you are adding that to your muffins.
📖 Variations
I love this muffin so much I have made these other variations as well.
You could also make
- Without strawberries - just do rhubarb, 3 cups total
- Without rhubarb - just do strawberries, 3 cup total
Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins with Sour Cream & Streusel Topping
Ingredients
Crumble topping
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup white whole wheat flour
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- pinch nutmeg
- pinch kosher salt
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter melted
- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
For the muffin batter
- ½ cup sour cream
- ¼ cup mild cooking oil
- 1 egg
- 1 ⅓ cups all purpose flour
- ⅔ cup brown sugar
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- 1 ½ cups strawberries quartered
- 1 ½ cups rhubarb diced
Instructions
To make the topping
- Combine the flours, sugar, spices, and salt in a mixing bowl.
- Add in the melted butter and maple syrup.
- Mix until the crumble forms and set aside.
To make the muffins
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt) in a large bowl.
- In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients (oil, yogurt, and egg).
- Pour the wet ingredients on to the dry ingredients, then add the strawberries & rhubarb.
- Mix to just bring the batter together. Don't over mix the batter. If there are a few lumps don't worry about it, they will work themselves out.
- Place 12 muffin liners into your muffin pan. Fill each one about ⅔rds the way up.
- Evenly distribute the crumble topping onto each muffin.
- Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown on top and cooked all the way through. Remove from pan as soon as you can handle them.
Notes
- I find that I am getting about 14-15 muffins out of this batter. You can bake the first 12, and then do the 2-3 more in the same pan. Or if you have another pan use it.
- I like a lot of fruit in my muffins but if you don't want as much, reduce the strawberries and rhubarb down to 1 cup each.
Gail Norton
CAn I use frozen fruit?
Eric Samuelson
Yes absolutely. You don't need to worry about thawing it first either. Put it in frozen.