Bakery Style Strawberry Muffins

🍯 Why This Recipe Works

1. It's not too sweet. Unlike other muffin recipes out there, this one isn't overly sweet. Yes, there's sweetness, but you feel like it's a sweet Brunch or snack, not a sweet-tooth satisfying dessert.
2. It's great for on-the-go snacking. These portable muffins are perfect for a grab-and-go breakfast or easy weekend mornings.
3. Simple ingredients. We use fresh strawberries and a lot of basic pantry staple ingredients like flour, baking powder, and butter to make these muffins.

🔪 Instructions

Step 1: Preheat oven to 450 degrees F and line a muffin tray with paper liners. Set aside.

Step 2: Add the dry ingredients for the strawberry crumble topping to a medium sized mixing bowl.

Step 3: Whisk together until blended.

Step 4: Add the cubed butter to the dry mix.

Step 5: Cut together with two forks or a pastry blender until coarse crumbs appear. Set aside.

Step 6: Add your flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl.

Step 7: Whisk together to combine.

Step 8: In a large mixing bowl, add the sugar, vanilla, and sour cream.

Step 9: Whisk to combine.

Step 10: Add the melted (cooled) butter to the sugar mixture.

Step 11: Stir quickly to prevent the butter from hardening.

Step 12: Add in the egg and orange zest, if using.

Step 13: Mix again to combine.

Step 14: Add in the flour mixture.

Step 15: Fold together to combine. Stir just until incorporated. The batter will be thick.

Step 16: Fold in the strawberry chunks, do not overmix.

The dough will be thick like soft cookie dough.

Step 17: Scoop the batter into muffin cups and fill them ⅔'s of the way full.

Step 18: Top with the crumble topping and press down gently to adhere.

Step 19: Bake at 450 degrees F for 7 minutes and then lower the temperature to 375 degrees F and continue baking for another 5-7 minutes until a toothpick can be inserted and come out clean.

Step 20: Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Step 21: Whisk together the glaze ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. Drizzle glaze over the top of your cooled muffins. Allow the icing to set. About 10 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

🍴 Recipe Tips

Originally I wanted to make these strawberry sour cream muffins as a treat for Valentine's Day and tell everyone that they were Valentine's Muffins, but after developing the recipe, I just couldn't wait any longer to make them. So now they're just Spring muffins, and I'm okay with that.

These muffins are so simple and easy to make that there's really no massive effort in the prep work. The trickiest part is simply waiting near the oven to adjust the temperature halfway through the baking process.

To do this, you don't open the oven, all you do is simply turn down the oven heat. Only after ALL of the time has elapsed should you open the oven and check on the muffins. Then use a toothpick to see if they come out clean. If not, add a minute or two to the baking process.