Strawberry Oatmeal Mini-Muffins

I'm going to commit the cardinal sin of recipe blogging and not put a picture up here front and center. These muffins were included in yesterday's lunchbox photo, but I have yet to grab any other great shots of them--and they are disappearing pretty fast, as bite-sized tasty treats tend to do!

When I was getting things ready for E's first school lunch, I thought some mini muffins would make a nice addition--in fact, I even ordered a new mini muffin pan for the school year, because my old silicone ones aren't so nice anymore. (I'm pretty over silicone bakeware, but that's another topic!) Muffins to me tend to be a way to use up whatever ingredients we have on hand that need using, so I decided strawberry was the way to go. I had recently made some very delicious cake-like berry muffins, but wanted something a bit healthier for lunches. So I improvised and the results were wonderful.

The recipe made a slightly awkward 32 mini muffins, but I used a bit more fruit and didn't fill the cups super full. Your results may vary--next time I might aim for bigger muffins so I can just do one batch of 24 and turn off the oven. Also, sub whatever in-season fruit you have on hand to use up, I suspect they will be equally delicious with raspberries, chopped apples, etc.

Ingredients:
4 T unsalted butter, melted
1/2 C strawberry yogurt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 C buttermilk
1/3 C brown sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
pinch of salt
1 1/2 C flour
1 1/2 C rolled oats
1 C strawberries, chopped

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Prepare a mini muffin pan (I prefer to use baking spray rather than liners)
2. Combine butter, yogurt, egg, buttermilk, and brown sugar. Mix well.
3. Mix in baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, flour, and oats. Stir until combined, but try not to overmix. Stir in strawberries.
4. Fill muffin cups with batter. I would try to fill the cups all the way full or nearly there.
5. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes or until fully set and lightly browned. Rest pan on a cooling rack for 10-15 minutes, then remove muffins to cool further.

I'll try to come back and spruce up this post with a photo later. Half the batch went into the freezer, so there will be more opportunities for photos!

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