Strawberry Muffins with Pecan Streusel #MuffinMonday

I am back on the ground in Dubai but I can’t complain.  Sure it’s hot but we have air-conditioned houses and air-conditioned cars and air-conditioned shops, which is more than I can say for the fair city of Paris.

This week’s Muffin Monday ingredient really isn’t any ingredient at all, but a combination of them:  Streusel.  I looked it up.  According to the Oxford Dictionary, streusel is a crumbly topping or filling made from fat, flour, sugar, and often cinnamon.  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says further that it often contains nuts or other spices.  Streusel comes from the German word streuen, which means to sprinkle or strew, both words we also use in English.  And while I admit to sprinkling streusel, I do try to confine it to the top of muffins or coffeecake.  I suggest you do the same.

Ingredients
For the muffin
2 cups or 250g flour
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup (measured after chopping) or 150g (weight after hulling) strawberries

For the streusel
1/2 cup or 60g pecans
1/4 cup or 50g dark brown sugar
1/4 cup or 30g flour
1/4 cup or 55g cold butter

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and generously grease cups of 12-cup muffin tin or line with muffin cup liners.

Hull and chop your strawberries and chop the pecans.  Set the strawberries aside.

Make your streusel by mixing together your brown sugar, chopped pecans and flour.

Cut in your butter with a pastry blender.

This takes a bit of doing and you will probably have to scrape the butter off the pastry blender and back into the bowl a few times before it starts to come together with the dry ingredients.

Persevere.  You might find it helpful to use a fork at the end.

Set the streusel aside (in the refrigerator if you are in a warm place) and continue making the batter.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In another smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, vanilla and egg.

Add all the milk mixture to flour mixture.

Gently fold just until dry ingredients are moistened and then fold in your chopped strawberries.

Divide your batter relatively evenly between the 12 muffin cups.

Sprinkle the streusel on the top of the batter and pat it down a little bit so it doesn’t fall off as the muffins bake and rise.

Bake 20-25 minutes in your preheated oven or until muffins are golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool 10-15 minutes before removing muffins from tin and placing on a wire rack to finish cooling.

Eat any pieces of streusel that fall off as you are removing the muffins.  The family will never know or miss them.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Muffins #MuffinMonday

The perfect muffin recipe to add your favorite extras too. Great with strawberries, blueberries: raspberries, dried cranberries, chopped strawberries, grated apples, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, cinnamon sugar, etc.

Nothing fancy here, folks, just some good simple muffins with strawberries.  I’ve posted this recipe before but it was quite a while ago and so I figured quite a few of you might not have read it.  It comes from the Houston Chronicle Flavor section and is so quick to make that I woke up that morning, read the paper while drinking my first cup of coffee and then had the muffins made before anyone else came down for breakfast.   If you measure and mix efficiently, you can have these in and out of the oven in 30 minutes.  After the first cup of coffee, of course.  Without coffee, I am thinking 45 minutes tops.

Our #MuffinMonday host, Anuradha, prescribed the strawberries.  The recipe was up to us!

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g all purpose flour
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 240ml milk
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted butter (melted) or ½ cup canola oil
(I’ve made this many times and either butter or oil makes a delicious muffin.)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
1 generous cup or about 175g fresh strawberries
Alternative additions in place of the strawberries: raspberries, dried cranberries, chopped blueberries, grated apples, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, cinnamon sugar, etc.
Optional: powdered sugar to serve

Method
Preheat oven to 400°F or 200°C.  Generously grease cups and top of 12-cup muffin tin or line with paper cups.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together.

Hull and chop your strawberries.   I also give them a good rinse before cutting and then dry them in a towel.

In another bowl, whisk together milk, canola oil, vanilla and eggs.

Add all the milk mixture to flour mixture, then gently fold just until dry ingredients are moistened.

Then fold in your strawberries or your alternate ingredients.

Divide your batter relatively evenly between the 12 muffin cups.

The cups are going to be pretty full. 

Bake 20-25 minutes or until muffins are golden.

Remove from oven and let cool 10-15 before removing muffins from tin.

Once they are cool, you can sprinkle on some powdered sugar if desired.

This recipe can also be baked as a cake, if you don’t have a muffin tin.  Extend baking time by five to 10 minutes or, once again, until golden.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Almond Muffins with Strawberry Glaze #MuffinMonday

This Muffin Monday post comes to you a day late quite deliberately.  Sometimes, when the inexplicable happens, it is all we can do to bow our heads in silent prayer.  And treasure the loved ones around us.  Our daughters arrived on Sunday night safely, although a little later than expected after an unscheduled detour to Abu Dhabi, because the airplane was low on fuel.  As I write this on Monday morning, they are still sleeping in their beds and, so, all is right with my world.  And, for that, I am forever grateful.

This week’s original strawberry muffin recipe came from Jane’s Sweets and Baking Journal.  I changed it up by adding in ground almonds, yogurt, a natural strawberry glaze and way more strawberries.  Oh, and some sliced almonds on top.  Because despite the sadness in this world, this is still the Holiday Series.  And while muffins can’t make everything better – would that they could – these strawberry babies do help.  Baked goods are comfort food, don’t you agree?

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 55g almond meal or finely ground almonds
1 cup or 225g sugar, divided into 3/4 cup or 170g for the muffin batter and 1/4 cup or 55g for macerating strawberries
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 120ml whole milk
1/2 cup or 125g plain yogurt
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted butter, melted then cooled
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
10 oz or 300g ripe strawberries

For the topping: 1/2 cup or about 40g very thinly sliced almonds

For the glaze:
1/2 teaspoon corn starch
1/2 cup strawberry juice drained from the sweetened strawberries

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C degrees.

Put paper liners in the cups of your muffin pan, or grease your pan with non-stick cooking spray or butter.

Hull your strawberries.  The easiest way to do this, with the least amount of strawberry wasted, is to slide your knife under the stem.  Use your thumb to hold the stem against the knife and put the whole thing out.

Cut up your berries and put them in a small bowl.  Sprinkle with the 1/4 cup or 55g sugar and allow them to sit while you get on with the batter.

In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the flour, almond meal, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Whisk together your melted butter, milk, yogurt, vanilla extract and eggs in a smaller bowl.

Pour the wet egg mixture into the dry ingredients, blending just until combined.

Over a small bowl or measuring cup, pour your strawberries into a sieve and allow all of the juice to collect.

Add about three-quarters of the strawberries to the batter and gently fold them in.  This is not a scientific measurement.  Let's not make things harder than they have to be!

Divide the batter between the prepared muffin cups.

Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with the sliced almonds.

Divide the leftover strawberries between the muffin cups.  Press down lightly to make sure the strawberries and the almonds are stuck in the batter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until they are lightly browned or a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean.  Mine actually took closer to 30 minutes but I suspect my oven is having issues.

Allow to cool for a few minutes and then remove the muffins from the tin and allow to cool completely on a rack.

When the muffins are almost complete cooled, whisk the cornstarch into 1/2 cup of your strawberry syrup until it is completely dissolved.

Pour the mixture into a small saucepan and heat until it comes to a boil.  Stir steadily as it heats.

Cook, gently boiling until the syrup turns clear (as opposed to cloudy) and thickens.

Set aside until cool.

Drizzle the glaze over the muffins and serve.

Enjoy!