Strawberry Muffins with Pecan Streusel #MuffinMonday

I am back on the ground in Dubai but I can’t complain.  Sure it’s hot but we have air-conditioned houses and air-conditioned cars and air-conditioned shops, which is more than I can say for the fair city of Paris.

This week’s Muffin Monday ingredient really isn’t any ingredient at all, but a combination of them:  Streusel.  I looked it up.  According to the Oxford Dictionary, streusel is a crumbly topping or filling made from fat, flour, sugar, and often cinnamon.  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says further that it often contains nuts or other spices.  Streusel comes from the German word streuen, which means to sprinkle or strew, both words we also use in English.  And while I admit to sprinkling streusel, I do try to confine it to the top of muffins or coffeecake.  I suggest you do the same.

Ingredients
For the muffin
2 cups or 250g flour
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup (measured after chopping) or 150g (weight after hulling) strawberries

For the streusel
1/2 cup or 60g pecans
1/4 cup or 50g dark brown sugar
1/4 cup or 30g flour
1/4 cup or 55g cold butter

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and generously grease cups of 12-cup muffin tin or line with muffin cup liners.

Hull and chop your strawberries and chop the pecans.  Set the strawberries aside.

Make your streusel by mixing together your brown sugar, chopped pecans and flour.

Cut in your butter with a pastry blender.

This takes a bit of doing and you will probably have to scrape the butter off the pastry blender and back into the bowl a few times before it starts to come together with the dry ingredients.

Persevere.  You might find it helpful to use a fork at the end.

Set the streusel aside (in the refrigerator if you are in a warm place) and continue making the batter.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In another smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, vanilla and egg.

Add all the milk mixture to flour mixture.

Gently fold just until dry ingredients are moistened and then fold in your chopped strawberries.

Divide your batter relatively evenly between the 12 muffin cups.

Sprinkle the streusel on the top of the batter and pat it down a little bit so it doesn’t fall off as the muffins bake and rise.

Bake 20-25 minutes in your preheated oven or until muffins are golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool 10-15 minutes before removing muffins from tin and placing on a wire rack to finish cooling.

Eat any pieces of streusel that fall off as you are removing the muffins.  The family will never know or miss them.

Enjoy!