Cardamom Scented Ricotta Muffins

I have a bad habit. When I am stressed out, I bake and a lot of times eat too much too. But, when I am stressed out too much to think about anything, I start reorganizing the kitchen cupboards, refrigerator, pantry and what not. It was one such day and I saw I have too many single serving applesauce cups, on tub of ricotta cheese that will expire next week. Suddenly, I was less stressed enough to bake. I made some fat free, vegan applesauce bread that are not great looking but are pretty good. And then, I had to make something out of ricotta cheese, so here is a muffin using that. I used cardamom to flavor it, but you could anything you prefer. This is adapted from the book 'Good House Keeping Baking', which by the way is a great book that covers almost everything in baking. This is a very mildly sweet muffin that pairs well with a cup of coffee or tea, or some fruit spread.

One year back - Drying herbs in microwave, Vegetable Vindaloo
Two years back - Cake Decorating Basics Part - 5
Ingredients: (Makes 6 regular sized muffins)
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Baking powder - 1 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Oil or melted butter - 3 TBSP
Milk - 1/4 cup
Ricotta cheese - 1/2 cup (measured in dry measuring cup)
Egg - 1 large
Cardamom - 3 pods powdered or 1/4 tsp powder

Method:
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line 6 cups of muffin pan with liners or grease them with vegetable oil spray. Set aside. In a bowl, whisk together flour, powdered cardamom, salt, baking powder, baking soda. In another bowl, whisk together egg, milk, oil or melted butter, ricotta cheese till well blended. Make sure you beat it well so that there are no lumps from ricotta and the whole mixture is smooth. Add the dry mixture and stir to combine. Divide among 6 muffin cups and bake for 20 - 22 minutes or until the top is golden and you can see few cracks and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on the wire rack in the pan for 10 minutes. Turn it on to the wire rack to cool completely.

Don't be confused by the dark color on the top. It is so moist inside that you will wonder if you used a whole stick of butter or just 3 TBSP.  Another point to note is this batter is thick that it doesn't spread and make a nice shape on the top. You will have to be careful while filling the cups. Wherever I added extra to even out, came out bumpy.

Enjoy.

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