The Floured Apron

If I lived in my dream world, this would primarily be a baking blog, and I would do enough baking to update it twice every day. Unfortunately, I’m the only one in our house with a sweet tooth, so if that were the case I would weigh at least 300 pounds. Probably more. So I’m always looking for occasions when I have a captive crowd to devour my baked goods so that I won’t have half a pie calling out to me from the kitchen. This morning, even though I had a training at 9 o’clock on a Saturday, I looked on the bright side. It was a great opportunity to make one of the muffin recipes I’ve bookmarked recently.

These strawberry banana muffins caught my eye because they reminded me of a better time. Specifically, not winter. Have you heard? It’s pretty cold in New Hampshire in January! Getting my fingers stained with strawberry juice, even if it came from frozen berries, was just what I needed. Now I have an additional reason to look forward to summer, because I would love to try this recipe with fresh berries.

I won’t have to worry about being tempted to stuff myself with muffins, because they were gone well before our training ended. These muffins are absolutely stuffed with strawberries, and they’re the perfect amount of sweet. I sprinkled the tops of mine with a little pearl sugar to give them a little crunch. (Sidenote: I was so proud that I actually remembered to sprinkle the sugar on top! I always forget that step when I’m making muffins, and then I get so disappointed when I realize there’s something missing.) Secretly, I think there’s a little part of me that brings baked goods to groups in order to make people like me more, and these muffins definitely did the trick! Everyone agreed they were delicious.

Strawberry-Banana Muffins

Joy of Baking

Time: About 45 minutes

Yield: The recipe said 12 muffins, I got 18

Note: I think next time I make these I will coat the berries with a little bit of the flour mixture and then add them at the end after the wet and dry ingredients have been combined. It was a little difficult to mix around the berries and I think my batter got just slightly tough.

Ingredients

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Position rack in center of oven. Line the muffin pan with paper liners or grease with butter or a vegetable spray. Set aside. (It was at this point I realized the only muffin liners I had in the house were Santa-themed. Oops.)

In a small saucepan melt the butter. Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together the brown sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and mashed banana. Add the melted butter to the brown sugar mixture and stir to combine.

In another large bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Gently fold in the berries, making sure they are coated with flour. This helps to prevent the berries from sinking during baking. Do not over mix or the blueberries will end up coloring the batter blue. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir only until the ingredients are just combined. Do not over mix the batter or tough muffins will result.

Fill each muffin cup about two thirds full of batter, using two spoons or an ice cream scoop. Fill any unused muffin cups halfway with water to prevent warping of the pan and/or over browning of the muffins. Place in the oven and bake until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.