You’ll find loads of recipes for Strawberry Muffins when you browse through the web or your cooking books, but I bet you wouldn’t find one that has the flavor and aroma of Saffron in it! The fun in cooking lies in trying out new recipes, and mixing ingredients to see how well they pair with each other. The result of one such experience were these beautiful golden Strawberry & Saffron Muffins – light, airy, and soft, with just that perfect amount of sweetness, mixed with the wonderful aroma of saffron. None of the ingredient here is overwhelming, and that is what makes this recipe dear to me. Hope you enjoy these as much as we did!
Sending these off to Sourashtra’s Kitchen for her latest collection of desserts and pastries, co-hosted by Sudeshna.
Strawberry Muffins
Ingredients
Makes about 12 medium muffins
1 1/2 cups sliced strawberries
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour (spooned and leveled)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon saffron, dissolved in 2 tbsp warm milk
1 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup light olive oil or vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Method
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Toss together strawberries and 1/3 cup sugar. Using a potato masher, lightly mash the berries; set aside.
Dissolve the saffron strands in the warm milk so that it becomes evenly yellow; set aside to mix later.
In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a glass 2-quart measuring cup or a medium bowl, combine buttermilk, oil, egg, and vanilla; whisk to combine. Finally add the saffron dissolved in milk, and mix together to let it bleed and get an orange-ish hue.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the buttermilk mixture and the berry mixture (with juice). Fold just until combined. Using an ice cream scoop, divide the batter among the muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops with remaining sugar.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 17 minutes. Cool 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.
Enjoy these delicious Strawberry Muffins as a guilt-free treat any time of the day!
These are so pretty, thanks so much for your SHF entry!
Girl,
Its not fair that you get to enjoy them all by urself – I am practically your neighbor you know, should have sent me a package 🙂
Anyways sending them to JFI is good enough for now. Next time I want the real ones 😉
Hugs to you and to the little one!
very interesting recipe.bookmarked for the next strawberry season