Strawberry Muffins

On Sunday, we took our regular family trip to the neighboring WalMart in Waynesville, NC – perhaps the largest one in existence. Seriously, the store is huge with isles twice the normal width and a selection of “green” products that we don’t have in our local WalMart. But enough about our ginormous and well-stocked WalMart, I don’t want to make you any more jealous that you already are about our great shopping options in the North Carolina mountains. Who knew 5 years ago that I would be ranking WalMarts? Anyways, while we normally don’t buy produce during our trip, I couldn’t help but notice that strawberries were $1 a pint. So, I bought 6 pints. And thus my strawberry cooking fest began.

These strawberry muffins are a modification of my blueberry muffin recipe. Since I happen to love the combination of angel food cake and strawberries, I switched out the oil with applesauce, which gives them a light and airy consistency. Also, I replace the skim milk with vanilla soy milk to make them more Parker friendly and since the soy milk is sweetened, I can use less sugar in the recipe.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2-2/3 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil (or applesauce)
  
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• 1/3 cup vanilla soy milk
  
• 1 cup sliced strawberries
  

These come together simply. Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Once you've stirred the wet ingredients together, pour them into the dry ingredients and combine thoroughly. Pour the batter into a greased muffin pan or use muffin liners and bake at 400 degrees for about 20-25 minutes.

*If you use the applesauce instead of the oil, go ahead and spray the muffin tins with Baker's Joy or something similar or they'll stick a bit when you try to remove the paper.

And that's it - so go forth, take advantage of the uber cheap strawberries this season and bake away. Muffins freeze wonderfully.