Strawberry Cardamom Streusel Muffins

( The names a mouth full, isn't it? I just act like I mean to say strooful instead of streusel.)

(These are not my muffins, but this picture was nicer than mine so...)

It's Sunday, and after 3/4 of a month off of school for springbreak, the kids are back at it tomorrow, so for me, that means that it's back to baking every Sunday for lunch snacks. Today I made muffins! (kay, I usually make muffins, they're easy, and quick). Anyway, as is normal for me, I can't follow a recipe, or really make one up entirely on my own, so I took a blueberry muffin recipe, and screwed around with it until I had summin else.

This is one of those recipes where the measurements are pretty loose. As a rule, I don't uses measuring spoons (I'm too lazy to dig them outta the drawer) and only occasionally use measuring cups. The problem with the way I cook is that when you add, not following a recipe, to not measuring things and you get frustrated people when they ask you for your recipe (my sisters and mother in law are frequent eye rollers over this). So, for them, I have attempted to recreate a recipe that I love in a proper format. However, the measurements are really more of an extremely intelligent estimate.

If you make the muffins, feel free to mess with the ingredients/measurements as much as you want (but if you do, I want to hear about it, in detail, and *eh-hem* you had better tell me that my version is better.)  
 



* I never have ground cardamom, so I grind cardamom seeds with my mortar and pestle

Strawberry Cardamom Streusel Muffins

12 muffins

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Chop up about 1 cup strawberries into any size pieces you want
• Grease muffin pan

Streusel Topping:

• 1/4 cup All Purpose Flour
• 2 tbsp Brown Sugar
• 1/2 tbsp Cardamom
• Several twist of your Black Pepper grinder or shakes of  you shaker
• 2 tbsp Butter or Stick Margarine

 Mix together dry. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Set aside.

Muffins

Beat in a large bowl:

• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup veg. Oil
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1 egg

Mix together in med bowl:

• 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/3 Sugar
• 1tbsp Cardamom
• 1 1/2 tbsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Add dry mixture to wet. Stir until just blended, batter should be super lumpy.

Shake strawberries with a bit of flour (I find this helps berries to not stick to the baking pan) then fold into batter.

Divide batter into muffin cups.

Sprinkle with streusel topping.

Bake for 20-25 min.

 (the cardamom bits are pretty, aren't they?)

Cool in pan for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack and...

TADA!!!! A recipe you can probably, almost, follow!!! Hand claps all around.