Strawberry Cream Cheese Muffins

Strawberries are one of those mesmerizing fruits at the grocery store.  I walk past them and they lure me in with their bright red color. So, I buy them and take them home, and the next time I look at them, they are sad looking, and not so appetizing.  But the cycle repeats quite frequently at the grocery store.  Someday I'll beat the cycle...or not.

These muffins came on a day where I remembered that I had strawberries in my fridge that I had bought, and needed to use them.  Some of my recipe swap friends had been posting these, and they sounded awesome.  So this recipe saved some of the poor strawberries in my fridge from going into the trash. 

Strawberry Cream Cheese Muffins
from Carrie's Sweet Life
Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
¼ cup butter, softened
2 eggs
½ cup milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1.5 cups chopped fresh strawberries

Directions
1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2) In a mixer cream together the cream cheese, butter, and sugar.
3) Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla and mix until just combined.
4) In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and the salt.
5) Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl and mix until just combined. Be careful not to over mix.
6) The batter will be thick, almost like cookie dough. Fold in the strawberries.
7)  Spoon batter into a paper lined muffin pan. Fill the muffin cups about 3/4 of the way full and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are golden. Cool on a cooling rack for about 15 minutes.
 
I became addicted to these little muffins throughout the week.  They are a lot like cupcakes, so I took them into my office, and they were devoured within an hour.  The only problem that I did have was that some of the muffins ended up without strawberries, so you could just decorate the tops with the strawberries instead of trying to fold them into the batter.  This would ensure that every one of these great muffins would have strawberries in them.  The next time you have some strawberries that are sitting all alone in your fridge, think of these and use them up.