To celebrate Yankee‘s 80th anniversary in 2015, The Yankee Seeker will spend the year cooking and baking from the vast and colorful Yankee Magazine recipe archives. Will the retro results of this week’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins hold up to today’s tastes? We can’t wait to find out! It’s another beautiful June in New England, and two […]
To celebrate Yankee‘s 80th anniversary in 2015, The Yankee Seeker will spend the year cooking and baking from the vast and colorful Yankee Magazine recipe archives. Will the retro results of this week’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins hold up to today’s tastes? We can’t wait to find out!
It’s another beautiful June in New England, and two of the month’s most delicious produce offerings are the ripe strawberries and tender stalks of rhubarb found in supermarkets and farmers’ markets throughout the region. We love the sweet-tart combination of strawberry and rhubarb, so when choosing this week’s recipe, finding something that featured both was the main criteria. I also wanted to make something easy and portable (my co-workers always appreciate the portable part, since it lets me share with greater ease), so I settled on these brown sugar and cinnamon-topped strawberry-rhubarb muffins from May, 1981.
Fresh summer Strawberry-Rhubarb Muffins. Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
Also in the May issue were features on wolf spiders, Gypsies in America, and self-sustaining gardens — all for the bargain price of $1.25. The cover? A lovely oil panting of Pawlet, Vermont (titled “Pawlet”) by Charles Curtis Allen.
Yankee Magazine | May 1981 Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
The recipe was submitted by the featured “Great New England Cook” in the issue, Barbara Riley of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The highlight of Barbara’s submissions may have been her May Baskets made from bread dough (and yes, we admit that they still look awfully impressive), but the strawberry-rhubarb muffins are nothing to sniff at. Actually, they are — they smell amazing!
The strawberry-rhubarb muffin recipe was first submitted by Great New England Cook Babara Riley of Cambridge, MA. Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
The muffins are, as promised, both simple and delicious. All it takes is your basic muffin-making ingredient combination (flour, sugar, baking powder, milk, egg, oil, vanilla, etc.) plus 3/4 cup of diced rhubarb and 1/2 cup fresh strawberries.
Is there a more perfect sweet-tart combination? Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
After portioning the batter into the muffin tin, top each one with a sprinkling of brown sugar and cinnamon, then garnish with a strawberry slice, and bake!
Topping the muffins with brown sugar and cinnamon, plus an extra strawberry slice. Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
Out of the oven these beauties were golden brown and fragrant with sweet smell of summer berries and cinnamon. Honestly, what smells better than that on a Sunday morning?
Baked to perfection! Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
Are you a fan of strawberry-rhubarb? If you are, add these muffins to your summer breakfast baking (and gifting) list!
In the next “Yankee Seeker Meets Yankee Archives” we’ll be tackling another summer seafood favorite, so stay tuned.
Aimee Tucker is Yankee Magazine’s Home Editor and the Senior Digital Editor of NewEngland.com. A lifelong New Englander and Yankee contributor since 2010, Aimee has written columns devoted to history, foliage, retro food, and architecture, and regularly shares her experiences in New England travel, home, and gardening. Her most memorable Yankee experiences to date include meeting Stephen King, singing along to a James Taylor Fourth of July concert at Tanglewood, and taking to the skies in the Hood blimp for an open-air tour of the Massachusetts coastline.
