Recipe: Strawberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

About two weeks ago I posted this strawberry meringue recipe in which I told you about the bucketload of strawberries I bought. After that recipe, I still had a whole lot of them left, so I decided to do one of my favourite things in the world (at least when it comes to baking): make up a new muffin recipe. There’s something about muffins that just makes me very happy. They’re easy to bake, even easier to customise and they look pretty and taste even better. What’s not to love?

Strawberries and chocolate are a classic combination, but I didn’t yet have a muffin recipe with both of those ingredients in my arsenal – until now! These muffins have chunks of strawberries in them, but I also added pureed strawberry through the batter for that extra little kick, since the flavour of strawberries often gets lost a little bit when you bake them.

I feel like I’ve typed the word strawberries about a million times now, so let’s just move on to the recipe now, shall we?

You’ll need… (for 12 muffins)

• 250 g plain flour
• 150 g white caster sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1½ teaspoon baking soda
• 120 ml vegetable oil (I use sunflower oil)
• 2 eggs
• 100 ml plain yogurt (you can also use milk)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 100 g strawberries, pureed
• 150 strawberries, diced
• 75 g dark chocolate chips
• optional: cookie crumbs for decoration (for the Dutchies: I used Schuddebuikjes)
• food processor (or something else to puree the strawberries with)
• a muffin tin
• optional: paper cases
• and an oven, of course! These muffins need to be baked at 200 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Mix the dry ingredients together Firstly, you need to take a large bowl and sieve the flour, baking powder and baking soda into it. Also add the sugar and the pinch of salt and mix it all together.

2. Mix the wet ingredients together Take a smaller bowl and mix together the oil, eggs, yogurt, vanilla and the pureed strawberries untill well-combined.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and add strawberries and chocolate chips Create a little well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet mixture. Also add the diced strawberries and the chocolate chips at this point. Use a (wooden) spoon to gently fold everything together. Do not overmix — it is okay to still see little bits of flour. If you overmix the batter, your muffins will turn out too tough.

4. Divide the batter over the paper cases Divide your paper cases over the muffin tin (or grease the tin if you don’t use paper cases) and then spoon the mixture into the cases/tin. Add the cookie crumbs (or Schuddebuikjes) to the top. This is completely optional – I also made a few without, as they’re mostly for decoration.

5. Bake! Put the muffin tin into your preheated oven and bake the muffins for 18 to 20 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. When they’re done, take the tin out of the oven and let the muffins cool inside the tin for about 15 minutes. Then, take them out of the tin and let them cool on a cooling rack.

And there you have it! You’ve got your own strawberry chocolate chip muffins – enjoy!