Strawberry Muffins

For the past couple of weekends, I've been craving muffins. Specifically blueberry, but really any muffins would do. I made a trip to the grocery store on Wednesday with the intention of buying blueberries (for the muffins) and instead stumbled across a whole shelf of discounted strawberries!

One awesome thing about strawberries on their last legs: they cook into amazingness. One of my absolute favorite things to bake is Smitten Kitchen's Strawberry Summer Cake - a pound cake-like base with strawberries sunk into the top. While the cake bakes, the strawberries literally melt into a jam-like consistency on top that is so awesome, I can't keep the cake in the house. Last-legs strawberries melt the best because they're already almost squishy.

When I saw the strawberries, I decided I'd try making blueberry muffins with strawberries instead of blueberries. This ended up being a fantastic idea. The strawberries melted inside the muffins, so instead of biting into crunchy fruit pieces, I bit into the muffins and it was like someone had injected them with little bits of jam. I made a dozen on Saturday, and I have another batch in the oven as I type.

Perfect Strawberry Muffins

adapted from Smitten Kitchen

makes approx. 12 regular-sized muffins

Ingredients:

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream)
1/2 tsp lemon zest (I left this out)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped into blueberry-sized pieces

Directions:

1) preheat oven to 375 and line or spray muffin tin.
2) Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and lemon.
3) Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Put half of the dry ingredients into butter/sugar and mix until flour disappears. Add the rest of the flour mixture and mix until just combined.
4) Gently fold in strawberries. The dough will be quite thick - this is good!
5) Fill muffin tins about 3/4 of the way.
6) Bake for 25-30 minutes, until tops are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean (minus strawberry goo!)

These are wonderful, dense, and moist muffins. The yogurt (or sour cream) adds an awesome tang that goes really well with the sweetness of the strawberries. I ate two of these right out of the oven, and took a majority of the rest to my boyfriend to enjoy...

Also: they're SUPER easy!!