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Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins

Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins
Strawberries are not always an easy fruit to bake with because they lose some of their texture when they’re in the oven. One way around this is to puree your strawberries and then incorporate the puree into whatever you’re baking – just as I did in these Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins. The light pink muffins are packed with fresh strawberry and topped off with a generous layer of streusel topping. They’re the perfect coffee cake to enjoy on a spring or summer morning.

The muffins pack a lot of strawberry flavor into a little package, with a whole cup of strawberry puree right in the batter. They’re soft and moist, with a tight crumb that is strong enough to support the buttery brown sugar and vanilla streusel that tops them off. The fresh strawberries naturally color these muffins. I used egg whites rather than whole eggs in this recipe because the yellow of the yolks will actually give the muffins an orangey, rather than a pink, hue and I wanted that natural color to come through as much as possible. I’ve had a lot of strawberry baked goods, but the combination of strawberry and streusel topping has got to be near the top of my list of favorites because it is absolutely delicious.

I used a generous amount of streusel to finish these off. It is sweet from all the brown sugar, but I added a pinch of salt that balances that sweetness and makes it “pop” next to the tender muffin. If you find that you have extra streusel, just pile it even higher and do your best to get it all on top of the muffin. If any streusel tumbles off while baking, you can just consider the crispy crumbs to be an edible bonus for the baker!

I used fresh strawberries to make my puree and highly recommend that you do the same. If you only have frozen berries, you need to defrost them completely and drain them well before pureeing them. The frozen berries likely contain extra water (at least from being defrosted) and that can water down the strawberry flavor of your muffins. These muffins will keep well in an airtight container for at least a day or two, so you could easily make them the day before you want to serve them if you want to bake ahead.

Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins

Strawberry Coffee Cake Muffins

Vanilla Streusel
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Fresh Strawberry Muffins
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large egg whites, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 cup strawberry puree (approx 12-oz strawberries)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.
Make the streusel: In a medium bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Add in flour, salt and vanilla and beat at low speed until ingredients are well-combined and mixture is sandy.
Take handfuls of the streusel mixture and squeeze them firmly in your hands to create large clumps of streusel (for a prettier finished product). Set streusel aside.

Make the muffins: In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg whites one at a time, followed by vanilla and almond extracts.
Stir one third of the flour mixture into the butter mixture, followed by half of the strawberry puree. Stir in another third of the flour mixture, followed by the remaining puree. Stir in the remaining flour mixture, mixing just until no streaks of dry ingredients remain visible.
Divide muffin batter evenly into prepared muffin cups.
Sprinkle streusel mixture evenly over muffin batter.
Bake for 19-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean or with only a few moist crumbs attached.
Allow muffins to cool in the pan for 10 minutes so the streusel can set, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 12.

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5 Comments
  • Nadia
    May 11, 2013

    I just had strawberry muffins at a birthday party yesterday and was wondering how to make them, so thanks for this well-timed recipe! do you suppose cooking the strawberry puree before adding it to the batter might intensify the flavor?

  • Nicole
    May 11, 2013

    Nadia – The muffins have a very good strawberry flavor as they are. Cooking the puree – by which I assume you mean reducing it – will thicken it to the point where you will probably need to add additional liquid to achieve the proper texture in your batter, and you might lose the benefit of any extra flavor from the reduced puree.

  • Danielle
    May 12, 2013

    Just made these a few minutes ago and they are FANTASTIC! I was out of almond extract so added a bit of lemon extract instead and it worked well. Thank you so much for the wonderful recipe. I am never disappointed with your creations.

  • Eve
    May 14, 2013

    Hi Nicole, I just love how enthusiastic you sound about this recipe 🙂 Anyway, as much as I like fresh strawberries i’ve yet to be sold on them when baked – strange but true – so do you think raspberries would translate well in this as a sub? With thanks…Eve x

  • Nicole
    May 15, 2013

    Eve – You could definitely do this with raspberries, but since their seeds are more noticeable than strawberry seeds, I would puree and strain them to get some or all of the seeds out before using the puree in the recipe. I bet they’ll be delicious!

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