Honey Strawberry Muffins

Honey Strawberry Muffins! Sweet, buttery, extra soft, and loaded with both strawberry jam and fresh strawberries. Made with whole wheat flour and sweetened with just honey. Bonus? They’re super easy to make! Try eating them warm, right out of the oven with a smear of butter. Promise, they won’t disappoint!

I’ve always loved berries and fruit of any kind. Pretty sure you all know this thanks to my obsessive talk about fruit. I’m also consistently finding ways to incorporate seasonal fruit into salsa, pizza, and all kinds of savory dishes. What I haven’t always loved is baking with fruit.

Now I know this sounds odd, who doesn’t love baking with fruit? Well, I grew up with a mom who only baked chocolatey things: chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, special K-bars (cookbook recipe), etc. Not complaining about this in the least, but it just means that I never knew about fruity baked goods as a kid. Sure, I had my fair share of blueberry muffins, but that’s really about it when it came to baked sweets with fruit. Unless you count banana bread…loaded with semi-sweet chocolate chips – of course.

In general, I really just love fruit as is. I love taking handfuls of fresh berries, eating whole peaches, and chowing down on some pineapple chunks, my personal favorite. Within the last couple years however, I’ve really grown to love baking with fruit. In fact, as we head into summer it’s pretty much all I can think about. Expect to see fruit pies, ice cream, cakes, and all kinds of fruity things this summer. Clearly I am just a little excited.

For me, it’s in-season produce, but that’s obvious. Outside of food, I’m excited for our upcoming family vacation to the Caribbean, immediately followed by a work trip to NYC, which excites me as well!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, all of June’s recipes feature a star summer ingredient like zucchini, corn, tomatoes, peaches, etc. Today’s ingredient is the end of spring and early summer strawberries! For real though, have you guys had these late spring strawberries that are at the market right now (which for me means Whole Foods)?! My last batch was so, so delicious. I couldn’t stop eating them. Since I knew there was the definite possibility of eating myself sick, I decided to turn them into extra soft and buttery strawberry muffins. Of course, then I couldn’t stop eating the muffins…

Anyway, these muffins are pretty basic as far as the batter goes. I like to use a combo of melted butter, eggs, greek yogurt, and buttermilk to keep the muffins moist, soft, and fluffy. Honey is my choice of sweetener. I love it paired with sweet strawberries, it’s one of my favorite combos. You could also use real maple syrup if that’s more your thing, but I think the honey is really good here. For my dry ingredients, I always go for a mix of whole wheat flour and white flour. You could use all white flour or all whole wheat flour, but I’ve found having a balance between the two is just what I am looking for in a muffin.

The secret to these muffins? A mix of really good strawberries and really “jamey”, strawberry jam. Using a combo of bright, fresh strawberries and sweet jam gives you the best of both worlds. The fresh berries add texture and body to the muffins, while the jam adds a layer of extra sweet, more intense strawberry flavor. Tip: you can really use any berry you’d like in the muffins, or even a combo, so feel free to swap in blueberries, blackberries, and or raspberries. Just keep the amounts of berries and jam the same.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup salted butter, melted

1/2 cup runny honey

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup whole milk or buttermilk

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup fresh strawberries, diced

1/2 cup high quality strawberry jam

2 teaspoons lemon zest