First off, let me start by saying no, I do not know how to slice a loaf of bread. And yes I get made fun of because of that fact quite frequently.
It’s a bit of a sore subject, so let’s move on… I have a thing for muffins. OK, so I also have a thing for cookies. And peanut butter. And fresh home grown carrots. But among the many food items I have a thing for, muffins are up there. I went through a phase. I even bought a cookbook that only had recipes for muffins. Then I went through it and put sticky notes on every recipe one I wanted to try.
The problem is, it’s not every day you find a healthy muffin recipe. Most of the time they’re filled with butter or oil and sugar, not to mention refined flours that make your blood sugar bounce off the walls and then hungry for another one 5 minutes later. These I was more than willing to settle for though. Next time I would go a little easier on the sugar, maybe reducing it by 1-2 tbsp, but I do think they’re pretty perfect as is. The original recipe called for walnuts and I think that would be amazing, but for this time I wanted to keep them free of nuts. I also like baking these in a mini loaf pan and cutting tiny little slices perfect for tiny hands. Also so I don’t feel bad having 3 or 4 slices 😀
- 1 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut oil or another flavorless oil
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- a couple drops orange extract maybe 1/8 tsp or the zest of half an orange
- 1/2 cup sucanat or all brown sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 cups chopped rhubarb 1/2" dice
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan, mini loaf pan or muffin tin.
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Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside. Mix the eggs, oil, applesauce and vanilla well, then stir in the brown sugar and sucanat. Add the wet to the dry and mix just until combined. Fold in the rhubarb. Pour into whatever you've chosen to bake with and place in the oven. A loaf pan will be done in about 50-60 minutes, the mini loaves will take about 30 minutes. My mini loaf pan has 8 cups, but this only makes 6, so if you make mini loaves make sure to fill the empty cups with a little water so your pan doesn't warp. I'm not sure about muffins, but check every couple minutes after they've been in the oven for 15 minutes to make sure they don't over bake. Test them by poking them with a toothpick and if it comes out clean, they're done.
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Once they're done remove from the oven and turn out onto a cooling rack. The top gets nice and crisp from the oven but softens completely when you store them in a container due to the fresh rhubarb. Cool completely before storing them in an airtight container for up to a few days.
Recipe slightly adapted from Natural and Balanced's Strawberry Rhubarb Bread Makes 6 mini loaves, 12 muffins or one regular loaf
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
The mini loaves look very pretty! I have some rhubarb that I wanted to use but hadn’t decided what to make with it, I wanted something healthy that wasn’t rhubarb compote and this fits the bill completely, thank you for sharing.
Oh wow, that looks so good and fruity. I could devour half of that mini loaf for breakfast alone. I have a sweet treat linky party going on at my blog till tomorrow night and I’d love it if you’d come by and link your muffins up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/2011/06/sweets-for-saturday-20.html
These look beautiful! I’m having a hard time imagining how they’ll taste (besides awesome…). I guess I’ll just have to try them out and see. 😉
I’m pretty awful at slicing bread too – glad I’m not the only one!
Thank you!
Haha, definitely glad I’m not the only one too 😀 Good thing it tastes good anyway you cut it!
I’ve never had rhubarb before, how yummy. Love the mini loaves 😀
These look wonderful, especially since they look moist even though they are healthy!
My first time seeing rhubarb bread and it looks yummy!
Guess what! I got ruhbarb today!! You have convinced me with all your delicious recipes 🙂
Awesome! 😀 I hope you like it!
Excellent! I love that you didn’t add strawberries in it….almost all the rhubarb recipes are with strawberries…
Great clicks too.
Angie
I find that too. I do love the combination of strawberries and rhubarb, but I also love rhubarb by itself 🙂
Thank you!
I finally got some fresh rhubarb in my CSA box today!! Yes! This recipe is calling my name. So excited to give it a try. 🙂
Awesome! I hope you enjoy them! I think Meghan will like them my kids did(although my daughters first bite was of a really sour piece of rhubarb so she didn’t like that very much, haha. Oops)
those mini loaves are so cute!
i love rhubarb, too…i bet this bread would taste wonderful with homemade strawberry jam.
Thank you! That is a great idea, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that while I still had some left! I even have homemade jam in the house. I guess I’ll have to make more 😀
yours looks great! i thought it was sweet enough too and thought about maybe using a little less sugar, but it definitely wasn’t too overpowering- hate it when breads/muffins are too sweet!
Thank you very much for the recipe! I know we’ll be using this one again and again. I don’t like muffins that are too sweet anymore(I never cared about that before – amazing how tastes can change) but these were perfect, especially since rhubarb can be so sour.