American Fresh Strawberry Muffins (Bread-Like)

CookBook Challenge Week 48: Bread 

I felt very energetic this morning despite of loosing an hour of my sleep due to the day light saving. Since the wheather gets better and suns started to shine, I felt good and energetic. I am so powered by sun. In fact I even did the make-up and stuff (complete make up which I don't do on weekend) just to go to Victoria Garden Shopping Centre for Mr.J phone signing, magazine grabbing and K-mart-ing. OH YA! I bought a green rubber spatula which only cost me $2.. hehe.. Green is not my preference colour. I did wish they have pink or purple but it's just $2 so 'just grab it and go', I told myself and I even planned to make some fancy dessert today. But now I am feeling awfully tired, demotivated and annoyed. Feeling a lil sick and the sorethroat is killing me. Could it be because I stayed too long under the sun in St.Kilda yesterday or because I was really hyperactive this morning or simply because I am just lack of stamina due to excessive hibernation in winter? And my fancy dessert plan???? emmm, let's just change to something simpler.. Strawberry muffins? I still have some fresh strawberry in chiller :)

So, just to clarify that this is an American Muffins where chemical leavener (bicarb soda or baking powder) is use. The texture is more like a cross between bread and cake. American muffin can be further divided in to bread-like (fat in liquid form) where it contain lesser sugar and butter, while cake-like (butter in room tempreture creamed with sugar)  has more sugar and butter content.

The following recipe is a bread like muffin because it only takes less than 45 minutes from preparation  to baking and go into my stomach. So, it is a quick bread. Do not over mix the mixture when you pour the wet ingredient into dry ingredient. Don't worry about the lumps because it will dissappear during baking. OK, let's bake.

Make 12 medium size muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (about 250g) hulled and bite sized fresh strawberry
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar (caster or white doesn't matter)
• 65ml oil ( I use half melted butter and half canola oil because I want to finish up the butter)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 125 ml milk
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 3/4 cup self raising flour
• 1/8 tsp bicarbonate soda/baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Methods:

1. Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius make sure the rack is at the centre of the oven. Grease muffin pan with butter or oil.
2. Sprinkle and mix bite sized fresh strawberries with 1 1/2tbsp of sugar in a bowl. Set aside. If the strawberries that you use is sweet enough, then you can either skip this step or reduce the sugar.
3. Melt butter and set aside. In my case melt butter top up with cooking oil to reach 65ml and set aside.
4. Pour out 1/2 cup of milk in a bowl and add in lemon juice. Mix. Set aside and let it curdle.
5. In a medium size mixing bowl, whisk together brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and milk mixture. Add in melted butter mixture and stir to combine. 
6. In another large mixing bowl, combine SR flour, baking soda and salt. Gently fold in strawberries mixture, make sure they are all coated with flour. This is to avoid the strawberries from sinking during baking. Add the brown sugar mixture into SR flour mixture. Stir until the ingredients are just combine. Approx 10 strokes.
7. Fill each  muffin cups to 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the tester comes out clean. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Dome and light weight