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Strawberry Swirl Coffee Cake Muffins
Since summer is rapidly approaching, it was a no-brainer for me to come up with the perfect easy muffin recipe utilizing fresh berries– Strawberry Swirl Coffee Cake Muffins.
They’re fluffy and moist on the inside, with chunks of fresh strawberry and beautifully golden crumb-covered muffin tops. The muffin has a delicious buttery flavor, strawberry preserves swirled into the batter and little delicious pockets of strawberries. HELLO PERFECTION.
I made these muffins with Domino® Golden Sugar. It’s made from pure cane sugar, is less processed than white sugar, and yet works cup-for-cup just like white sugar. It also imparts just a hint of molasses flavor and has the perfect golden color. You can grab Domino® Golden Sugar on Amazon here! Or you can find it in your local grocery store! (Here's a nifty little store locator tool!)
How to Make Strawberry Swirl Coffee Cake Muffins
There are three essential parts to this strawberry swirl coffee cake muffin recipe. The crumb topping, the strawberry swirl, and then the actual strawberry-studded muffin!
1. Crumb Topping
Ahhh, sweet and buttery crumb topping… You’ll need seven ingredients for this crumb topping: Domino® Golden Sugar, Domino® Dark Brown Sugar, cinnamon, salt, flour, walnuts, and butter. If you're allergic to nuts, or just don't like them... you can totally leave them out without needing to add or alter any of the other ingredients!
To make the crumb topping, you simply just throw everything into the food processor and pulse until the mixture forms crumbs. Ta-da! Sweet, crumb topping with a slight crunch… try not to eat it all.
2. Strawberry Swirl
The strawberry swirl is even easier to throw together than the crumb topping is. Simply stir together fresh strawberry preserves and some lemon juice until it's well combined. So simple, yet so good.
3. Strawberry Muffin
These muffins are super moist… the secret? I use both sour cream AND buttermilk. I guess that’s not really a secret anymore, is it? But they’re both so crucial to the texture of the muffins. If you don’t have any sour cream on hand, you could always substitute it with Greek yogurt. You can also substitute any type of milk for the buttermilk, but you’ll be missing out on *some* of the moistness.
To make these delicious muffins, you’ll start by creaming butter, Domino® Golden Sugar, and Domino® Dark Brown Sugar together until smooth and creamy. Then add the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract and mix until evenly combined. Finally, you’ll add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk and strawberry chunks, and mix until just incorporated. From there, you just gotta fill your muffin tins and it’s off to the oven!
Using Fresh Strawberries In Muffins
Fresh strawberries make all the difference in this recipe. While the swirl is made with strawberry preserves, which means you should use a high-quality brand, the fresh strawberries get folded into the muffins themselves.
Can You Use Frozen Strawberries
Yes, if you’re in a pinch, but fresh will be better! Thaw the frozen strawberries and make sure to gently pat dry with paper towels so you don’t add too much moisture to the batter.
Tips & Tricks to Make the Best Strawberry Swirl Coffee Cake Muffins
- Don’t overmix your batter. Overmixing causes the muffins to get tough, which nobody wants. Mix just until everything is combined.
- Use a spring-loaded scoop to fill the muffin tins. You'll need to fill each one with exactly 4.5 tablespoons of batter; it works best if you're precise! Anything more will cause the muffins to overflow, and anything less will result in squat muffins.
- Bake muffins in a greased muffin tin or with paper liners to ensure your muffins come out of the pan in one piece. Either way, make sure to spray the outer top border around the muffin cavities as well so the muffin tops don't stick!
- Press the crumb topping down into the batter so it sticks when the muffins rise in the oven.
- Don’t overbake your muffins. Bake them just until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean, or once you can touch the top of the muffin and the muffin springs back.
Looking for more breakfast recipes? Check these out!
Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Cookie Butter Muffins
Strawberry Cardamom Puff Pastry Poptarts
This post is sponsored by Domino® Sugar. All opinions are 100% my own. Thanks for continuing to support the brands that help make ‘Mike Bakes NYC’ possible!
Strawberry Swirl Coffee Cake Muffins
Ingredients
For the Strawberry Swirl:
- 80 g strawberry preserves
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
For the Crumb Topping:
- 50 g Domino® Golden Sugar
- 55 g Domino® Dark Brown Sugar
- 125 g all-purpose flour
- 30 g walnuts
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 115 g unsalted butter cold & cubed
For the Muffins:
- 115 g unsalted butter softened
- 150 g Domino® Golden Sugar
- 55 g Domino® Dark Brown Sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 115 g sour cream room temperature
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
- 250 g all-purpose flour
- 60 g buttermilk room temperature
- 145 g diced strawberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (220°C). Prepare two muffin tins by spraying the inside of every other cavity or lining with cupcake liners. Spray the top of the muffin tins with cooking spray (to prevent the muffin tops from sticking) then set aside.
- Make the strawberry swirl: In a small bowl, stir together the strawberry preserves and lemon juice until combined. Set aside.
- Make the crumb topping: In the bowl of a food processor, combine the Domino® Golden Sugar, Domino® Dark Brown Sugar, flour, walnuts, cinnamon, and butter. Pulse until the topping begins to clump together and become crumbly. Set aside.
- Make the muffins: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, Domino® Golden Sugar, and Domino® Dark Brown Sugar together on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract. Beat on high speed until the mixture is combined and uniform in texture. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
- Whisk the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and flour together in a medium bowl. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, add the buttermilk and diced strawberries and mix on low speed until everything is combined.
- Spoon 4.5 tablespoons of batter into each cup or liner, filling each to the top. Then spoon about a teaspoon of the strawberry preserves/lemon juice mixture into each cup, swirling with a toothpick or skewer. Press a handful of the crumb topping into the top of each muffin.
- Bake for 5 minutes at 425°F (220°C) degrees, then keeping the muffins in the oven, lower the oven temperature to 350°F (180°C) and bake for 15-17 more minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool the muffins in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then use an offset spatula to run underneath the edges of the strawberry muffin tops to prevent them from sticking in the pan. Be careful to just run the offset spatula under the edges—you don't want to accidentally cut into the muffin and decapitate the muffin from its top! After unsticking the muffin tops, keep cooling the muffins in the tins completely to room temperature.
Notes
Nutrition
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Pixie
These were absolutely delicious both time I've made these! The only substitiutions I made is more sour cream in the batter for buttermilk (as I don't keep that on hand and like the moisture and richness sour cream provides, and there's enough acidity in it to effectively activate the leaveners like buttermilk does) and no walnuts in the topping in the second batch for some guests who have nut allergies. Both version were lovely! I found lightly spraying the muffin tin with cooking spray the second time around was enough to not have to fiddle much with unsticking the muffin tops from the metal, which made for much less cleanup. I LOVE the method of a quick burst of heat at the start of the cooking process and then cooling off the oven, it makes the perfect bakery style muffin, so don't skip it. These muffins are a great supplement to the gift of your summer fruit jams, low sugar strawberry freezer jam in particular worked perfectly for the swirl in these!
heather
the topping was my favorite part! i used apricot jam instead of strawberry jam so i wouldn't say they were the strawberry-est of strawberry muffins (no surprise there), but they were still deliciously fruity (:
sara
Hey Mike, if I'm going to cut this recipe in half do I need to be aware of some ingredient that needs to be kept in the same amount?
Also thank you so much for sharing, I love what you do.
Michael Johnson
Nope! You can halve all of the ingredients! 🙂