Strawberry Muffins with Sucanat
Sometimes inspiration is harder to come by than other times and that was certainly the case this past week. I couldn’t think of anything to bake and wasn’t feeling very inspired but I started to think about Valentine’s Day coming up and that always reminds me of strawberries - especially after having worked in a bakery where we made a ridiculous amount of chocolate dipped strawberries for Valentine’s Day! The strawberry inspiration led me to finding the recipe I have adapted below from Once Upon a Chef for delicious strawberry muffins. The main difference is that I swapped out the granulated white sugar for Sucanat.
As a reminder, Sucanat is an abbreviation for “sucre de canne naturel” or natural cane sugar and is a less processed, more natural sugar in comparison to granulated white sugar/brown sugar. Due to the minimal processing involved in producing Sucanat, it retains more of its nutritional properties as well. The minimal processing does mean that the granules of Sucanat are larger and not uniform though so when adding it to recipes, including this one, you will need to grind it in a coffee or spice grinder first so that it can better incorporate in with the the rest of the ingredients.
I hope you’ll give these muffins a try - the strawberries give them a delicious moist texture that’s hard to resist!
Makes 12 muffins
Ingredients
240 grams all-purpose flour plus 2 teaspoons for tossing with strawberries
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
160 grams Sucanat, grind in coffee/spice grinder
2 eggs
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
125 ml milk
330 grams strawberries, diced
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and Sucanat for about 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and almond extract.
With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three separate additions, alternating with the milk and ending with the flour.
Toss the strawberries with 2 teaspoons of flour (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom). Set 1/2 cup of the strawberries aside. Add the remaining strawberries to the batter and fold in with a spatula until evenly distributed.
Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin. The cups will be filled to the top. Scatter the reserved 1/2 cup of strawberries evenly over the muffins.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until lightly golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for a bit before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
