Strawberry season typically runs from June until mid-August but I think it’s safe to say that we hit strawberry season early this year. I was at my local grocery store and they were selling 1 pound strawberries for $0.99! And as you can see from the picture below, they’re not prune-y, gross-looking strawberries. They’re BEAUTIFUL! And they’re incredibly sweet. I had already bought 4 pounds of strawberries at Costco that morning but that doesn’t mean I didn’t grab two extra pounds. I mean at $0.99, you can never have enough strawberries.

So with all the strawberries that I had, I left a pound of strawberries aside for this week’s Muffin Monday. But I still needed to figure out what I would do with the rest of it before it goes bad so I decided to make Pastry Affair’s Strawberry Balsamic Jam. It’s an incredibly easy recipe where you simmer a pound of strawberries with some sugar and balsamic vinegar.

Forty minutes later, you have freshly made strawberry jam. Easy peasy. Now this was my first successfully-made jam, and I think it’s safe to say that I will never buy jam ever again. I slathered this on a nicely-toasted English muffin and seriously, this was the best jam of my life. I mean chunks of fresh strawberries swimming around in a thick and wonderfully sweet strawberry like syrup? It doesn’t get better than that!

So if you come across some insanely cheap strawberries like I did, you have tons of things to make, starting with this jam. After you make the jam, you have to make these strawberry yogurt muffins. Why? Cause then you get to smear the muffin tops with this awesome jam.

Now let’s get into these muffins. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much with this muffin recipe. I’ve made plenty of yogurt muffin recipes and they’re incredibly moist and all but I just felt like I’ve been-there-done-that with this kind of recipe. So to spruce it up, I decided to add a cinnamon streusel. But wait, this isn’t your ordinary cinnamon streusel topping. This one is made with coconut oil. This was my first time using coconut oil and I was amazed at the kind of texture it produced. The streusel was more of a cinnamon sugar topping, but it was chunks of crispy and crunchy cinnamon sugar that just melted in your mouth. Combine that with these oh-so-light and fluffy muffins filled with chunks of fresh strawberries. Mmmmm… Now there’s a breakfast I look forward to when I wake up in the morning.

Strawberry Yogurt Muffins (adapted from Taste of Home):

Yields 12 muffins

  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 cup fat-free plain yogurt
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped fresh strawberries

Cinnamon Streusel (adapted from The Lovely Pantry):

Yields 12 muffin toppings

  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
  • 1 tablespoon turbinado sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners; set aside. (If you don’t want to use paper liners, you could coat a muffin pan with cooking spray instead.)

To make the streusel topping, combine the flour, sugars, cinnamon, coconut oil and vanilla in a small bowl; set aside. (The topping will be very moist.)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg and baking soda.

In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla.

Pour mixture over dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula just until moist.

Add the strawberries and gently toss to combine.

Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin tray.

Sprinkle with reserved topping, using your fingertips to gently press the crumbs into the batter.

Place into oven and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop in a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

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