The Secret to Strawberry Muffins That Actually Stay Moist

A few months ago, we had a family outing to a strawberry farm where we could pick our own strawberries. You can read about it here:

When we got home, I felt excited about how many strawberries we had, which quickly turned into a weird kind of stress. What were we going to do with all these strawberries?

Fun Fact

Unlike bananas, strawberries don’t ripen once picked from the vine. Although strawberries taste better at room temperature, if they’re not consumed on the day of picking, they should be refrigerated before they turn to liquid and start going mouldy.

This will still happen in the fridge, but you might just have an extra couple of days before you go to pick up a strawberry and it collapses into a pile of goo in your hands.

Can I Make a Muffin That Doesn’t Need to be Swallowed with Liquid Like a Pill?

I always love the idea of a muffin. Every now and then, I’ll get a craving for one, and no matter where I buy it from, I take a bite, and I’m always disappointed by the dry, bready texture.

You practically need a liquid chaser with every bite to get it down! They’re like glorified dry crackers.

If you get one with icing to cover up the dryness, they can be slightly more bearable.

They’re practically arid. I looked up the actual meaning of this and, according to Google, it means “unpleasantly dry without life.” Perfect explanation.

I found a recipe for strawberry muffins and put my own spin on it in an attempt to make a moist muffin, and I was very happy with the results. No icing required.

Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients

Olive oil spray

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

250g strawberries

200g (3/4 cup) low-fat Greek-style yoghurt

45ml (1/4 cup) light olive oil

1 egg, lightly whisked

Method

• Preheat oven to 180°C. Spray a 12-capacity muffin pan with olive oil spray to lightly grease. Insert a patty pan into each hole for easy removal. Spray with oil again.
• Blend the strawberries to make a pulp. I put mine in my Nutribullet and it worked really well.
• Sift the flour into a large bowl. Stir in the brown sugar and strawberry pulp.
• Combine the yoghurt, oil and egg in a large jug. Pour into the flour mixture. Stir until just combined.
• Divide the mixture evenly among the prepared pans. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Place onto a wire rack to cool.

Why This Works?

Most muffin and cookie recipes (trust me, I’ve tried a few) ask you to chop the strawberries and add them as a mix-in, like chocolate chips. Blending the strawberries creates a juicy pulp, which then adds more moisture to the dry ingredients.

I can’t take credit for this one because it was part of the original recipe, but Greek yoghurt also makes muffins more moist.

Bonus Level

We still had so many strawberries left, so I made a slight variation and came up with choc strawberry muffins.

Choc Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients

Olive oil spray

1 1/3 cups self-raising flour

2 tbsp cocoa

1/2 cup brown sugar + 1 tbsp extra to counteract the bitterness of the cocoa

250g strawberries

200g (3/4 cup) low-fat Greek-style yoghurt

45ml (1/4 cup) light olive oil

1 egg, lightly whisked

Follow the method above.

Pro Tip

If you’re not going to consume these muffins within a day or two, it’s best to freeze them. I put mine in individual freezer bags and take them out for my son’s morning snacks.

They still taste great from the freezer. I was chopping one up for him yesterday, and the centre actually looked like it had a fudge texture. Delicious!

🍓

Shameless plug: If you enjoyed the strawberry photo at the top, you can now grab it as a canvas print, phone case, or more over on my Redbubble store.