Strawberry Sour Cream Brown Sugar Soaked Oat Muffins

The winning combination of strawberries, brown sugar, and sour cream flavors these whole grain muffins, with an extra boost from soaked oats.

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Forget your shortcakes, your chocolate coatings, your balsamic glazes.  For me, the best way to enjoy a fresh local strawberry is to grab it by the leaves, dunk it into sour cream, then plunge it into brown sugar.  Then get out of the way of that strawberry as it gets into my mouth!  I don't share well sometimes.

Sadly, the local strawberry season is over in the blink of an eye, and the Certified Wildlife local varmints attempt to pilfer my backyard patch even faster.  I have learned that I must gorge myself on strawberries, sour cream, and brown sugar as soon as the berries come into my house, and if any are left over I bake with them.  If you manage to put any strawberries up, this recipe will also work with frozen berries, or slightly older, softer berries, as you're going to smash them anyway.


It's yet another variation on my Soaked Oat Muffin recipe, which I need to update to include links to some of the muffins I'm enjoying.  Like this one!  Remember that this recipe is best after the oats soak at least an hour and up to overnight.  You can even combine the oats and buttermilk in a container in your fridge for several days before use.

I wanted to share how our household generates very little waste with the strawberries, so I thought I'd pose the composting pigs in the strawberry patch with the strawberry tops.  The pigs were not informed of my plans, and ran amuck in the strawberries instead.  Did you know pigs will eat the plants, too, not just the fruit?  Now you do.  In the future, they can eat alfresco only in the clover.

For more recipes using strawberries, please see my Strawberry Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me who think that strawberries shipped in from Off taste like water, and prefer to eat strawberries that taste like . . . well, strawberries. I'm pinning lots of berry and other recipes to my Pinterest boards, follow me there. I'm sharing the progress of my own strawberry patch (can't get more local than the back yard) on my Instagram feed, follow me there. I'm sharing articles that catch my eye on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Strawberry Sour Cream Brown Sugar Soaked Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 cup strawberries (fresh & local or if frozen, let them thaw as the buttermilk and oats hang out)
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Spice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (I'm using kosher)

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, combine oats and buttermilk.  Let it sit on your counter for at least an hour, up to overnight (or you can prep this step up to several days in advance and store in the fridge).  
2. When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and spray a muffin pan with oil. 
3. Stir sour cream into the oat mixture, then add strawberries.  
4. Mash them well (I used my potato masher) then add the oil, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla.  
5. Stir well.  
6. Dump the dry ingredients on top, and stir until just combined.  
7. Scoop** into the prepared pan.  
8. Bake 15-18 minutes until done.  
9. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.  
10. Serve warm (the butter gets all melty) or at room temp.

**My scoop holds 3 Tablespoons (1 ½ ounces) by volume, though the muffin batter is mounded in the scoop so I'm pretty sure I'm putting a good 3 ½ to 4 Tablespoons into each muffin well.  The muffin wells in my regular muffin pans each hold 3 ounces by volume.

This muffin recipe is joining the clever chicks at the Clever Chick Blog Hop, TastyTuesdays, the Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up,  What's Cookin' Wednesday, What's In The Box--the traveling edition, and the From The Farm Blog Hop.

Simon was very curious about the photo shoot.