Early-Summer Deliciousness

One of my favorite things about summer is that fresh fruit — really fresh, not flown-in-from-Chile fresh — is readily available. I love berries in particular, so I was excited to see local (Maryland) strawberries for the the first time at Eastern Market on Saturday. I ate some for dessert last night, and decided to save the rest for breakfast.

This morning, I decided to turn the remaining strawberries into muffins. A quick search online produces this recipe, which I had to alter only slightly to accommodate fresh fruit. Obviously, I replaced the frozen fruit with fresh, but I also tweaked the preparation by combining half the sugar with the sliced strawberries to make them juice a bit, so that I’d achieve that “undrained” quality called for in the recipe. I also used olive oil rather than vegetable oil, just because it seems a bit healthier.

They came out really well and are very tasty — especially with the strawberry butter suggested in the recipe. I guess my muffin cups are a bit smaller than average, though, because I ended up with 18 and not 14 as the recipe indicated. So, I think my freezer will have a supply of muffins for a while. Yum!