Strawberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

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These soft and fluffy strawberry chocolate chip muffins are filled with chocolate chips for a “chocolate covered strawberry” experience in every bite. Omit the chocolate chips for a traditional strawberry muffin! 

This recipe is brought to you in partnership with Bushel and Berry®.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a simple strawberry muffin, but as someone who loves fully-loaded treats (looking at you, compost cookies), the more goodies I can jam into a baked good, the better. 

BUTTERMILK: I almost never have buttermilk on hand, but it’s a snazzy ingredient in that it brings mega moisture to baked goods. That’s why I make my own more often than not, and here’s my homemade buttermilk recipe so you can make your own, too.

OIL: I originally wrote a lot of my recipes to include vegetable oil, but am leaning away from it more often as I know other oils are far more popular. I tested this recipe with avocado oil, which worked great. I also tested the recipe with melted coconut oil, and while the results were delicious, I tend to be able to detect the coconut flavor, which I usually love, but I didn’t want it in these strawberry muffins. 

FRESH STRAWBERRIES: we tend to purchase strawberries year round, regardless of the price, because we love them! If they’re unavailable for you or out of season, frozen are fine. Be sure once thawed, that you blot/squeeze them of most of their moisture to avoid soggy muffins. Thanks to Bushel and Berry®, I had fresh strawberries available to me when I made these muffins. I particularly like this strawberry plant, Rosy Belle™, because it produces juicy strawberries all season! It works well planted in patio pots, hanging baskets, or garden beds.

SEMI-SWEET CHOCOLATE CHIPS: you can omit these, or use white chocolate chips, or dark chocolate chips, or switch to mini for more per bite! You have creative chocolate license here.

SANDING SUGAR: while optional, sanding sugar makes a great topping for baked muffins. It adds crunch and sparkle! This is my favorite brand of sanding sugar.

Combine wet ingredients: you’ll want to be sure this mixture is nice and smooth before adding in the dry ingredients. 

Stir the batter: gentle gently gentle. Once we add the add-ins, there will be more stirring, which will help break up those flour pockets. 

Rest the batter: let those ingredients cozy up together and bring lift to the batter. This is a step I adopted well into my baking career but it’s one I will never not do going forward! It really makes a huge difference in those tall domes.

Fill muffin wells: I like to use an ice cream scoop with a trigger (my favorite one is linked in the recipe card) for uniform filling. This recipe makes 9 muffins, so you can also just distribute the batter evenly among the liners, if you prefer. 

Bake: this is a total of about 28 minutes of bake time. Once the muffins are done, allow them to cool no more than 10 minutes in the pan to avoid soggy bottoms. 

STIR GENTLY: this is a thick muffin batter, but that’s intentional! This consistency will help your muffins hold their tall shape (see more in last success tip!) and prevent the strawberry pieces and chocolate chips from sinking to the bottom of your muffins.

REST THE BATTER: this is key in bringing lift to your muffins. A solid 15 minutes is all it needs, which is enough time to start to see bubbles in the batter and feel a difference when you stir it. It will start to feel like it’s taken on air– this is exactly what you want!

BAKE AT INITIAL HIGH TEMPERATURE: these muffins will bake at a high temperature for 10 minutes to lift up the muffin top and solidify that structure. After that initial time, you’ll bump the temperature down to continue to bake the inside of the muffin.