You can make these moist and tender gluten free strawberry muffins any time you can get your hands on some fresh berries, but I'd wait until the strawberries are at least a little fragrant (and they aren't so overpriced!). You know the warm weather is coming when the strawberries in the store start to smell like actual strawberries!
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Why you'll love these gluten free strawberry muffins
Once you have your basic muffin ingredients assembled, including your bright and fresh, juicy red strawberries, the batter for these muffins is ready super fast. Your strawberries don't have to be perfect, either, since we're baking them.
We're sprinkling of a few more chopped strawberries on top of each well of muffin batter just for a hint of what's inside and a beautiful presentation. But if your strawberries aren't perfect, skip the sprinkling and just bake the muffins as is. No one will mind once they smell the muffins baking and take that first bite!
Since we want a crisp top and a tighter crumb than, say, strawberry cupcakes, we don't cream the butter and sugar together when preparing the batter. Instead we melt the butter, mix it with milk and eggs, and the sugars, and mix that into the dry ingredients.
Baking muffins with fruit in them is not quite as simple as taking a classic gluten free muffin recipe and adding some berries. Any time you add fruit to muffin batter, but especially strawberries, you're adding a ton of moisture to the batter. You need to rebalance the other ingredients in the muffin so it bakes all the way through and still has that beautiful tender crumb.
Recipe ingredients
Here are the ingredients you'll need to make these gf strawberry muffins:
- GF flour blend: Since we're replacing wheat flour when we're baking gluten free, the flour blend is the most important ingredient you'll select. Please be sure to use one of my recommended gf flour blends, and avoid the ones I caution against! Believe me I wish they were all as good as the ones I recommend!
- Baking powder: Double-acting baking powder begins to work as soon as it's added to the wet ingredients, and then acts again when it goes in the oven to give our muffins lift—but be sure to get them in the oven fast, so the texture stays just right.
- Salt: Kosher salt, or lightly flaked sea salt, are common in baking mostly because it's harder to overmeasure them than it is table salt. You can use a touch less table salt, though, if that's all you have.
- Milk: I like to bake with whole (4%) milk, because it adds flavor and richness, but as long as your milk is at least 2%, it's fine.
- Butter: Here, we melt the butter since we're not creaming it with the sugar to add more air to these muffins. The butter adds tenderness and flavor, but not structure. Instead, it gives the muffins some pleasant chew.
- Eggs: The eggs provide structure and help the muffins rise into a beautiful dome.
- Granulated sugar: Granulated sugar sweetens the muffins, keeps them tender (sugar isn't just forsweetness!), and helps create the crisp brown muffin top.
- Light brown sugar: A touch of light brown sugar adds moisture to your muffins without making them too wet.
- Chopped strawberries: Get the freshest berries you can, cut off the tops, then cut each in half, then each half in half again for quarters. Chop into 4 or 5 pieces each.
How to make gluten free strawberry muffins
These muffins are made simply in a mixing bowl, without creaming together butter and sugar. Here's how to make them, step by step:
- Assemble the wet ingredients (milk, butter, and eggs), along with the granulated and light brown sugars.
- Whisk these ingredients together until very smooth. If any of the wet ingredients is cold, the butter will clump even if it was melted and smooth first, so be sure everything is at room temperature.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the gf flour blend, xanthan gum, baking powder, and salt.
- Use a mixing spoon to create a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet mixture.
- Mix until the ingredients are combined, then, working quickly, add the chopped strawberries. Fold in the strawberries so you don't crush them, but make sure they're evenly distributed throughout the batter.
- Fill the lined and greased wells of your standard 12-cup muffin tin full with batter, and smooth the tops gently if the batter is bumpy on top.
- If you'd like your muffins to be more beautiful, sprinkle the tops of the batter in each well with some more chopped strawberries (you'll only need another 2 medium-size strawberries for the whole batch), and then with a light dusting of a coarsely ground sugar.
- Bake the muffins at 375°F/190°C for at least 25 minutes.
- The mufins are not done baking until you can insert a tester (like a toothpick) in the center of the middle muffin and it comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached. If the tester seems wet or tacky, keep baking.
Tips for making these strawberry muffins
User muffin tin liners
You can bake these muffins without lining the wells of your muffin tin, but I prefer to line the wells because the muffins bake more evenly with the sides insulted by the paper. Plus, the liners help keep the muffins from sticking to the tin after baking.
Grease your liners
I also like to grease the muffin liners to ensure that the liners themselves won't stick to the muffins. I like to spray the liners before I put them in the tin to avoid getting cooking oil spray all over the tin, which will burn in the oven.
Choose your gluten free flour blend carefully
The biggest difference between a gluten free recipe and a conventional one is, of course, the type of flour you use. No single gluten free flour can support a whole recipe like wheat flour can, so we use a blend of different flour that mimic the performance of wheat flour.
A gluten free recipe isn't just a “regular” recipe with gluten free flour added, though. Itneeds a different balance of ingredients to get the most out of that gluten free flour blend, too, of course.
But the first, most important choice you'll make in any gluten free baking is what flour blend to use. You must use one of my recommended all purpose gluten free flour blends to get the results you see here, and measure by weight since volume measurements are unreliable.
Most of the commercial gluten free blends that are available are simply not properly balanced, inconsistent in quality (sometimes you'll get a better batch, oftentimes worse), and use gritty rice flour that tastes bad and doesn't combine properly with the other ingredients.
Use one of my recommended gluten free flour blends, or one of my “mock” recipes so you can build your own version of these blends, and you'll be successful the very first time.
Use fragrant fresh strawberries
The strawberries are the star of the show here, so be sure to select berries from the store that smell like strawberries. Otherwise, your muffins just won't taste like strawberry muffins, and instead will be sort of bland. They don't have to look perfect. They just have to have flavor.
Gluten free strawberry muffins ingredient substitution suggestions
I haven't tried these muffins with any substitutions to eliminate additional allergens, and I advise against making substitutions of any ingredients unless absolutely necessary. Each substitution takes you further away from the recipe as written, and a recipe is a formula.
But if you have additional food intolerances or allergies, here are my best educated guesses:
Dairy free strawberry muffins
There is dairy in these muffins in the milk and in the butter. In place of the milk, try unsweetened almond milk or your favorite nondairy milk. Be sure to use something that has some fat, though, or your muffins will be less tender.
In place of butter, try Melt brand or Miyoko's Kitchen brand vegan butter. Don't use oil, though, since oil has no moisture and butter does, so they aren't proper substitutes for one another in baking.
Egg free strawberry muffins
There are 2 eggs in these muffins, and in my experience you can usually replace up to 2 eggs in a standard 12-muffin recipe.
My favorite egg substitute is 1 “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel) per regular egg. You will see fleks of chia in your muffins, but you shouldn't taste anything different.
FAQs
Yes! Once they're baked and completely cooled, you can freeze these muffins by placing them in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet in the freezer until frozen (about 20 minutes). Then, transfer them to a freezer-safe container and store for up to 3 months.
No, frozen strawberries would have to be defrosted first before they could be chopped, and defrosted strawberries are soft and wilted. They're really only for blend into smoothies and cooking into a strawberry puree.
No, to achieve the intended crumb texture, this muffin batter should be baked as soon as the batter is assembled. Although it can sometimes be beneficial to allow muffin batter with double-acting baking powder to rest before baking, I've found in this recipe it makes the muffins less tender.
Maybe! You can try replacing the chopped strawberries with another chopped fruit with similar moisture content. Maybe try using chopped peaches or nectarines.
Chopped strawberries have more moisture than, say, blueberries, so I'd recommend using our recipe for gluten free blueberry muffins if that's what you seek. Same goes for raspberries. I'd use the blueberry muffins recipe and use raspberries instead.
If you didn't line your muffins wells with muffin wrappers that you've sprayed lightly with cooking oil spray, or your muffin tin doesn't have a reliable nonstick coating, your muffins won't come out of the tin in one piece.
I bet you can! The baking time will be different, but I don't know how long. Try checking at 15 minutes, but don't underbake or your muffins will deflate as they cool.
When baked goods rise in the oven and then fall as they cool, it's usually because they're not baked fully so the inside doesn't have enough structure to support the rise as steam escapes.
That often occurs when your oven runs too hot, so the outside is baked the point of almost burning before the inside is fully baked. Use an oven thermometer, as most ovens do run hot!
If you're concerned about having chopped strawberries at the very bottom of your muffins, which can make for some uneven bottoms, add some plain muffin batter to the bottom of each muffin well before you add the chopped strawberries. Then, fill the muffin wells the rest of the way with the fully prepared strawberry muffin batter.
I wouldn't recommend that, no. Since muffins are so different from quick bread in shape in size, batter that makes a beautiful muffin often won't bake properly as quick bread. Instead, try our recipe for gluten free strawberry bread. The differences are relatively subtle, but important!
Large sugar crystals sprinkled on top of your muffin batter before baking add a touch of extra sweetness, some sparkle, and a bit of a crunch. You can use “Sugar in the Raw” brand light brown turbinado sugar crystals, which you can find in most larger grocery stores. I like to use Chef's Select White Sugar Crystals that I buy on Amazon. They keep forever, and they're a nice bright white color.
No, this recipe is designed to be made with chopped strawberries, which provide extra moisture to the muffin batter. To make a muffin without any mix-ins, or with a mix-in that doesn't add extra moisture, you need our basic gluten free muffins recipe. You can customize that with your favorite dry pieces mix-ins, or leave them absolutely plain!
Gluten Free Strawberry Muffins
Ingredients
- ¾ cup (6 fluid ounces) milk at room temperature
- 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter melted and cooled briefly
- 2 (100 g (weighed out of shell)) eggs at room temperature, beaten
- ¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (55 g) light brown sugar
- 2 ⅛ cups (297 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend (I used Better Batter; please click thru for full info on appropriate blends)
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum omit if your blend already contains it; use a heaping 1 teaspoon
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ¼ cups (200 g) hulled and chopped fresh strawberries
- 2 more medium strawberries for topping (optional)
- Coarse sugar for sprinkling (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375°F.
- Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with grease-proof muffin liners, spray the liners with cooking oil spray, and set the tin aside.
- In a 4 cup measuring cup or other medium-size bowl with pour spouts, whisk together the milk, butter, eggs, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Set the mixture aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, placed the flour blend, xanthan gum, baking powder, and salt, and whisk to combine.
- Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix until just combined. The batter will be thick but not stiff.
- Add the chopped strawberries and fold them gently into the batter, trying not to squish the berries.
- Fill the prepared wells of the muffin tin completely full with batter. You should have 12 muffins.
- With wet fingers or a wet spoon, smooth any really uneven bits of batter in the middle wells to distribute the batter more or less evenly.
- Chop 2 optional extra strawberries and distribute evenly on top of batter in each well. Press down gently to help them adhere.
- Sprinkle the optional coarse sugar lightly on top of the batter in each well.
- Place the muffin tin in the center of the preheated oven.
- Bake until the tops are lightly golden brown and a tester comes out clean when inserted into the center of the middle muffin (about 25 minutes).
- Remove the muffin tin from the oven and allow the muffins to cool in the tin for 5 minutes.
- Gently lift each muffin out of the tin, and transfer it to a wire rack to allow it to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
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Hi, I’m Nicole. I create gluten free recipes that really work and taste as good as you remember. No more making separate meals when someone is GF, or buying packaged foods that aren’t good enough to justify the price. At Gluten Free on a Shoestring, “good, for gluten free” just isn’t good enough! Come visit my bio!
Brynn says
In the oven right now! Can’t wait!! Came together quickly and easily and I love the way they look already! 🍓
Linda says
Can you substute Coconut oil for the butter, no dairy for me. Thanks love your recipes
Nicole Hunn says
Hi, Linda, no I don’t recommend coconut oil as a butter replacement, generally, unless you’re talking about the kind that’s solid at room temperature. For my recommendations for how to eliminate additional dairy as an allergen, please see the text of the post under the heading “Dairy free strawberry muffins”
Cindy L Ranuio says
Hi,
I love your recipes and have saved all of them and used many. I was just looking at the strawberry muffin one and saw that it is sweetened with sugar. Is there an alternative you could suggest, like perhaps coconut sugar, or allulose, or something? I am fighting cancer and cancer loves plain sugar.
Thank you,
Cindy Ranuio
Nicole Hunn says
Hi, Cindy, yes, all of my sweet recipes are in fact sweetened with sugar. Coconut sugar is still sugar and wouldn’t work here anyway without modifications. But if you’re trying to avoid sugar, you really want to use a sugar alternative. I have made some recipes with Lankato brand monkfruit alternative sweeteners, and you might try that here. They do tend to be drying, so the result won’t be the same, I’m afraid, but it might be worth a shot. I sincerely wish you the best with your health and will keep you in my thoughts.