It has been HOT in Portland. I’m not talking 85°, wish there was a breeze hot, I’m talking 100°, can function kind of hot. My dog basically spent the weekend lying on one of the air conditioning vents on the floor. I honestly wish I had thought of that first.
In spite of the ridiculous heat, I did manage to have a pretty fun weekend. I went wine tasting with a couple of friends in McMinnville on Saturday. Thankfully the tasting rooms all had air conditioning and we spent minimal time outside. Stepping outside from a cool building did feel a lot like walking into a sauna though. It wasn’t the most pleasant feeling. The wine and conversation were good though so that more than makes up for it. Although hot sun and day drinking pretty much has you ready to go to bed by 8pm.
So Saturday was wine tasting, Sunday was baking, finishing up a paper for one of my classes and doing literally nothing for the whole afternoon. It was glorious. Minus the whole paper-writing thing, I should have finished that earlier in the week but I got distracted. LIFE.
Anyway, these strawberry muffins were my Sunday baking creation. They’re literally exactly the same as my recipe for blueberry muffins but they’ve got strawberries in them instead. Both of them are the perfect summertime muffin and I highly recommend you add both of them to your summer baking repertoire.
These are perfectly moist and light. Everything you want a muffin to be. We’re using sour cream (or Greek yogurt) for the perfect muffin texture and we’re using vegetable oil instead of butter. We’re lightening things up a bit and feeling good about it. We’re drizzling and folding, not dumping and aggressively mixing. We want light muffins, not tough ones. Nothing worse than have to chew a muffin a million times just so you can swallow it. We want to enjoy it alongside our morning cup of tea or coffee, not have to dunk it in our favourite hot beverage just to soften it up.
So head to the kitchen, grab some berries and bake your muffins. These babies come together in no time!
Strawberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
- 1 cup chopped strawberries
- Raw sugar, for sprinkling
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 375°F and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
- Step 2 In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- Step 3 In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until pale yellow in colour. While whisking, slowly drizzle in the vegetable oil, then add the vanilla extract and sour cream and mix well. Gently fold in the flour mixture, being careful not to overmix. Fold in the strawberries.
- Step 4 Divide the batter among the 12 cupcake liners and sprinkle the top of each with some raw cane sugar. Bake for 22-28 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Turn out onto a towel to cool completely.
