roasted rhubarb almond and polenta muffins

roasted rhubarb almond and polenta muffins

• 29 Jun 2026

Last month I shared a recipe for roasted peach almond and polenta muffins. They were delicious and I planned to make a rhubarb version as soon as it was rhubarb season. Well it's rhubarb season in Sydney so I bought a bunch of rhubarb and set to work adapting the recipe.

First things first, oven roast the rhubarb. Please don't skip this step because raw rhubarb turns into tough inedible nubbins when baked for 30-40 minutes. If you have any leftovers they're delicious topped with yoghurt. 

I made a few changes to the batter - a little more sugar, a bit more egg and I added some chopped uncooked rhubarb because too much rhubarb is never enough. I ran out of muffin liners and discovered the new liners I bought were much smaller. Instead of 6 muffins I ended up with 9 muffins.

Here's the recipe for you adapted from a Claire Ptak recipe which will make 9 muffins. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Roasted rhubarb almond and polenta muffins - makes 9 muffins
Oven roasted rhubarb

400g trimmed rhubarb
2½ tbs sugar 
1 tbs grated orange rind
½ cinnamon stick
juice ½ orange

Batter ingredients 
125g caster sugar plus raw sugar for sprinkling
125g room temperature unsalted butter
The grated rind of 1 orange (minus the 1 tbs used in the rhubarb)
2 eggs 
165g almond meal 
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt 
112g polenta flour
60g diced rhubarb
icing sugar to serve 

Oven roasted rhubarb
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional, or 170°C, fan forced. Trim the fruit to fit into a roasting pan and sprinkle with the sugar. Grate the orange before juicing. Sprinkle over 1 tbs of the rind and then reserve the rest to use in the batter. Add the cinnamon stick and the orange juice to the tin, then roast uncovered for 10 minutes. The rhubarb should still be quite firm as it needs to be trimmed to the size of your muffins. Remove the tray from the oven and cool completely before storing the roasted rhubarb in an airtight container the fridge. Reserve any juice.

Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional or 170°C, fan forced. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with 9 paper liners. (I was aiming to make 6 muffins but my new paper liners are much smaller and I ended up with 9 muffins)

In a stand mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and orange zest until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs slowly and mix well.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the almond meal, baking powder, salt, and the polenta flour. Add this to the butter mixture and mix well then fold through the diced rhubarb. Scoop the batter into the lined muffin pan and top with 3 or 4 rhubarb slices then sprinkle generously with raw sugar.

Bake the muffins for 30-40 minutes on the centre rack of the preheated 190°C conventional, or 170°C fan forced oven or until an inserted skewer comes out clean and the tops of the muffins spring back to the touch. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the tin. 

If you like, you can simmer the reserved rhubarb cooking juices in a small pan to form a syrup. Just before serving, glaze the rhubarb pieces with the syrup, then dust the muffins with icing sugar.

These muffins will keep for up to 4 days in an airtight container and I think they actually taste better the day after baking.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian