ricotta, strawberry & choc-chip muffins

Nandita’s Weekend Breakfast Blogging challenge this month was “Baking for Breakfast”. The whole idea was to use your baking skills to devise an exciting breakfast option to share with the rest of the WBB bloggers.

A few weekends ago I made this recipe for muffins baked with ricotta and choc-chips. The idea came from Bar Cupola, a café in my office building, who used to bake their own tall, wonderfully moist muffins using chunks of fresh fruit and creamy ricotta.

Here I came up with my own replication so I could enjoy the muffins at home on the weekends. They came out perfectly: the ricotta and fruit adding extra moisture.

Ricotta, Strawberry & Choc-Chip Muffins
Anna’s very own recipe. Makes 12 large or 24 small muffins.
Ingredients:
1½ cups self raising flour
½ cup plain flour
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk
1 cup dark chocolate bits
1 cup diced strawberries
250g ricotta
1 teaspoon honey
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200’C. Grease muffin tin.
2. Combine honey and ricotta and pack firmly into a ramekin or small baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes or until slightly golden on top and almost firm to touch.
4. In a large bowl, sift flours, sugar and cinnamon from a height to aerate as much as possible.
5. In a separate bowl, beat egg, oil and milk together.
6. Pour wet ingredients onto dry. Add choc-chips and strawberries.
7. Stir mixture with a fork until moistened and just combined. Mixture may seem lumpy but do not beat or over stir. The less you stir the softer your muffins will be.
8. Half fill each muffin hole with mixture. Be sure to include strawberries and choc-chips in each muffin.
9. Divide baked ricotta between muffins. Top ricotta with remaining muffin mixture then, using a teaspoon, swirl mixture and ricotta slightly.
10. Bake muffins in oven for approximately 15 – 20 minutes or until risen and slightly golden.
11. Remove from oven. Rest for 1 minute then turn out. Serve warm.
Variation: instead of strawberries, you can use banana, pear, peach, apricot or any kind of berry.

Be sure to visit Nandita's round up so you can discover other baked breakfast beauties.

Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes weekend breakfast blogging wbb breakfast muffins strawberry ricotta chocolate choc-chip