For me, a good muffin for breakfast never gets old. Pumpkin, chocolate, lemon poppy seed, and of course, every type of berry we can get our hands on. Though many berries can be easily swapped out in muffin recipes, to me strawberries just aren’t one of them. Strawberries contain a lot more juice than other berries and release a lot of liquid during cooking. As a result, baked goods with just regular ol’ strawberries mixed in have a tendency to be gummy and mushy.
Of course I’m not just going to pass up an opportunity to include those bright red jewels in the muffin repertoire, so instead I rely on a simple technique that fixes all those juice and texture issues. Roasting the berries brings out their natural sweetness while also releasing their liquid. The juices still contain plenty of flavor, so I reserve it and mix it in with the liquid portion of the ingredients in the muffin batter, adding less other liquid to compensate. This way, you keep all the wonderful strawberry flavor but without excess liquid and texture problems. (And by the way, I tested waaay too many batches of muffins before I was satisfied that the result was worthy of sharing here, so hopefully you will love these as much as we do!)
Note: This recipe was developed as part of my ongoing contribution to the Go Bold with Butter blog. Head over to see my posts as well as more great recipes from the other awesome bloggers involved with the project!