Cupcakes Cousin

So I know this is supposed to be a cupcake blog, but I didn't really have time this weekend to make cupcakes...so I made their cousin: muffins!

On Sunday we went to the farmer's market and got some strawberries. We still had some left in our fridge from the week before. I didn’t want to waste them so I needed a way to use. I remembered seeing a recipe for strawberry muffins on Two Peas and Their Pod blog (recipe here) and went back to find it. The recipe calls for Nutella, but we didn’t have any so I decided to leave that out.

I cut up all the strawberries and mixed the ingredients together and thought that the muffins needed a little something extra. Then I remembered my boss brought these amazingly delicious and moist strawberry-peach muffins. Luckily, I always have canned peaches in the pantry. They were the perfect addition!

I cut up 5 or 6 peach slices and threw them in the batter. I’m sure you could use fresh peaches, but these seemed like a better idea. I am not quite sure why…maybe it’s because they’ve been sitting in syrup and I thought they might make them a bit moister. Really it was just a gut feeling and it worked.

The batter was really thick – not quite as thick as cookie dough, but it made me think of it – so I thought I’d try adding a bit of the syrup from the canned peaches (maybe ~ 1 ½ to 2 Tbs). I wouldn’t add any more then this or it might get too liquidy.

The muffins came out great. They were the perfect combination of strawberry-peachy-muffiny goodness. Earl and I were going out to dinner basically right after these came out of the oven, but we couldn’t resist trying one. Best muffins ever!! I will definitely be making these again.

Recipe (adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod)

-makes ~ 10 muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

~ 1 – 2 tablespoons syrup from canned peaches
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
5 – 6 slices canned peaches; chopped
Sugar, for sprinkling on top of muffins

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a muffin tin with paper/aluminum liners.

2. Sift together the dry ingredients.
3. Mix the wet ingredients until well combined. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix, being careful not to over-mix. Fold in the strawberries and peaches.
4. Fill the muffin cups ~ 2/3 full. Sprinkle with sugar (turbinado is probably best, but I didn’t have any so I just used bakers sugar).
5. Bake at 350°F for 17-20 minutes.
6. Let cool for ~ 5-10 minutes and remove from muffin pans.
7. While waiting for the muffins to cool to an edible temperature try to act like you have patience and self control and then devour.