Ode to Rhubarb

Oh how I love thee!
Today I made some scrumptious Rhubarb and Custard Muffins. I found a couple of recipes on the internet, but had to mesh the two together, as one wanted you to cut the rhubarb up into little pieces and in the photo it looked unappetising, and the other called for a couple of ingredients I didn't have.
So here is what I did...


Firstly I roasted the rhubarb.

Heat oven to 200C. Rinse the rhubarb and shake off the excess water. Trim the ends and cut the rhubarb into little finger-sized pieces. Put the rhubarb in a shallow dish or baking sheet with sides, pour in roughly 50-60g of caster sugar , toss together, then shuffle the rhubarb so it's in a single layer.
Cover with foil and roast for 10-15 mins. Remove the foil. The sugar should have dissolved, so give everything a little shake and roast for another 5 mins or until tender and the juices are syrupy.

Secondly I made the custard.

2 tablespoons custard powder, ¼ cup caster sugar, 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
Combine custard powder and sugar in small saucepan; gradually stir in milk. Stir custard over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens. Stir in extract. Cool.

Thirdly I made the muffin mixture.

Preheat oven to 200C. Line 12-hole muffin pan with paper cases.Sift flours and caster sugar into large bowl. Stir in butter, milk and egg. Do not over-mix. Fold in the rhubarb. Spoon half of the mixture into cases; top with custard. Spoon in remaining mixture to cover custard. Sprinkle with raw sugar. Bake muffins about 20 minutes. Stand muffins in pan 5 minutes; turn, top-side up, onto wire rack to cool.

Last, but not least, Ariki and I taste tested them!

They are really good muffins. Go and make some!
Raewyn xxx

P.S Here is one of the links to the 2 recipes I combined, for some reason that an amateur blogger such as myself does not understand, I could not put the other one on. But the recipe can be found on the ninemsn website.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1952/rhubarb-and-custard-muffins