Strawberry Oat Muffins

The strawberries are at their peak and I am in my annual strawberry frenzy — buying too many, eating them standing at the counter, making jam, making mochi, putting them in everything. Oregon strawberries are a religious experience and I have said this before and I will say it again every June because some truths bear repeating. Small, ugly, intensely flavored, the opposite of the grocery store strawberry in every way. I made strawberry daifuku again — the mochi-wrapped strawberry that is Japan's most perfect dessert — and brought them to my yoga class and watched twelve adults bite into mochi for the first time and the look on their faces was everything. Surprise, delight, the particular confusion of encountering a texture you have never encountered. Mochi does that to people. It is the food that defies expectation.

I wrote a blog post about strawberry daifuku that turned into an essay about expectations — about the foods we think we know and the foods we have not yet met, about the gap between the familiar and the new, about the courage it takes to put something unfamiliar in your mouth and trust that it might be wonderful. The metaphor was obvious. I used it anyway. Sometimes the obvious metaphor is obvious because it is true.

Brian and I went on a date night — dinner at a sushi restaurant in the Pearl District, a place I have been wanting to try. We sat at the counter and watched the chef work and ate omakase and for two hours we were the couple I remember — curious, laughing, sharing bites, Brian asking me to explain the fish names and me explaining with the pleasure of someone who gets to be the expert for once. Brian's world is beer and sports and the social landscape of Portland's craft beverage industry. My world is miso and shiso and the inner landscape of a Japanese-American kitchen. On this date, at this counter, our worlds overlapped. It was brief and it was beautiful and I am holding onto it.

Miya stayed with the babysitter Rachel, who reported that Miya ate an entire bowl of rice and then asked for "mo," which Rachel did not understand until I explained it is Miya's word for "more," borrowed from Japanese, which Miya is absorbing the way children absorb everything: accidentally, constantly, without knowing she is doing it.

After a week of mochi-making and jam jars and standing at the counter eating strawberries by the fistful, I needed one more thing to do with this ridiculous abundance — something I could tuck into a bag for Miya, something Rachel could grab on her way out the door, something that asked almost nothing of me but still felt like a celebration. These strawberry oat muffins are exactly that: humble, unfussy, and deeply, unmistakably strawberry in the way that only works when the fruit is this good. Make them while the season lasts, because it will not.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 37 minutes | Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, plus 2 tablespoons for topping
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3/4 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (or sour cream)
1/3 cup neutral oil (such as avocado or grapeseed)
2 tablespoons whole milk
1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and diced into 1/2-inch pieces
1 tablespoon granulated sugar (for topping)

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat your oven to 375°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease well with butter or nonstick spray.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until evenly combined.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, yogurt, oil, milk, and vanilla extract until smooth and uniform.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold gently with a rubber spatula until just combined — a few streaks of flour are fine. Do not overmix or the muffins will be tough.
Fold in strawberries. Add the diced strawberries and fold in with 2 or 3 gentle strokes. The batter will be thick.
Fill the tin. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Sprinkle the tops with the reserved oats and granulated sugar.
Bake. Bake for 20–22 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.
Cool. Let the muffins rest in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Eat warm or at room temperature. Store covered at room temperature for up to 2 days, or freeze for up to 2 months.

Nutrition (per serving)

Strawberry Oat Muffins — When the Berries Are Too Good Not to Bake With