Fennel Ricotta Muffin フェンネル リコッタ マフィン

My wife rediscovered some muffin tins and how to fill them to make muffins with generous tops, so now she's into making muffins. Although the freezer space is getting tight, she recently made another wonderful batch of muffins. This is a fennel flavored and ricotta cheese stuffed muffin and is from the "La Brea Bakery" cookbook. (As usual my wife made alterations to the original recipe).

When I saw this cross-section of the muffin I thought my wife had cut the cooked muffin in half and added a layer of cheese but she told me that she just put the ricotta cheese between two layers of batter then cooked the whole thing together.

As shown below this is the result of "over filling" the muffin cups with batter. The tops are touching each other. The large tops, however, create a problem. When removing the muffins from the tin while still warm and putting them on the cooling rack, they started collapsing under the weight of the heavy tops. My wife quickly solved this problem by turning the muffins upside down while cooling on the wire rack. Once cooled, they can withstand the heavy tops without any problem. (According to my wife, although all the recipes say only fill the muffin cups 3/4 full, she thinks this technique results in a perfectly shaped muffin just the right size for breakfast). Also, notice the cream colored portion showing on the top of the muffins in the picture below. That is where the cheese filling partially oozed out while the muffin was baking and added an additional creamy sweetness to the crust.

I ask my wife for the recipe.

Ingredients:

For the batter 
1 tsp. fennel seeds
3 cup AP flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups yogurt
3/4 vegetable oil

For the filling 
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt

Directions:
Toast the fennel seeds in a pan until they turn slightly brown and fragrant. Grind or crush them into as fine a powder as possible. In a large bowel combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Add the crushed fennel seeds. In another bowl mix the yogurt and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir until incorporated.

In another bowl mix the ricotta cheese, vanilla and salt.

Fill a liberally greased muffin tin cup half full with the batter. Top with a generous dollop of the filling and top with more batter to cover the filling and mound up over the edge of the cup. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes.

These are lovely muffins. They are not too sweet and have a subtle fennel flavor. They have a nice moist cake like texture. The filling becomes incorporated into the texture and adds a nice layer of creaminess with a pleasant burst of cheesy vanilla sweetness. These are muffins that make it worth getting up in the morning.