Spiced Molasses Muffins

Cooking Light put out a recipe called Tuscan Lemon Muffins. They are some of the lightest, fluffiest, flakiest muffins I have ever eaten. Pure genius. I give credit to two things: the use of ricotta cheese in the recipe and large quantities of baking powder (double what you see in a lot of other muffin recipes).

I could eat a creamy, lemon muffin every day. And yet it seems like such a nuisance to go buy a lemon to make them.

Enter cupboard ingredient I need to find a use for--molasses. Don't get me wrong, I love molasses. I actually drizzle it on a fried egg over-medium, sprinkle a little cayenne pepper on top. It's like pure heaven of sweet, spicy, creamy goodness with the earthy bitter aftertaste of the molasses cut by the creamy egg. It's one of my favorite things.

Unfortunately, not all molasses is made alike. My breakfast egg is best served with Brer Rabbit Mild, but my grocery store was out, so I bought Grandma's Original--the only molasses they had that day. It's a good molasses, but not for eating so exposed on an egg. The bitter aftertaste is more than I can take, so it's been sitting in the back of the cupboard, waiting for some other use. I keep thinking I should bake it into bread.

Yesterday, I ate my last little cup of lemony, muffiny heaven, and I decided the next batch of muffins should be made with molasses, but as I perused muffin recipes, I noticed that a lot of the muffins made with molasses looked dense--not puffy and fluffy like I would prefer.

So I thougth to myself, what would happen if I applied some of the principles of the Tuscan Lemon Muffin to the concept of a Ginger Molasses Muffin?

It turns out, I am totally out of ginger, so I had to deviate on the spices quite a bit. I also spent quite a bit of time reading about baking powder and baking soda to decide how much I wanted to include in my recipe. I asked myself questions like "Do I need to add vinegar to have some of the effect that the lemon juice has in the lemon muffins?"

After some slight pondering, I rushed in and just did whatever I wanted. The end result was amazing. It's taking so much self control not to eat another right now.

Here's the recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper cups and spray with a non-stick spray.

In a large bowl, mix together:

• 2 cups flour (I used 1 cup all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat).
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp clove

Make a well in the center. In another bowl blend together:

• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup ricotta
• 1/2 cup molasses

Pour the liquid mixture into the dry and mix together. Fill the muffin cups almost full with your mix, distributing evenly. Sprinkle sugar (turbinado sugar is recommended but not essential) over the top of the muffins.

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes back clean. Remove hot muffins from the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack. Eat at least one while it's still warm.

If they're anything like the lemon muffins, they'll be best over time if frozen, then popped in the microwave for 30 seconds when you want to eat in the morning (my microwave takes a whole minute, but it's...special).

Today's muffin adventure also inspired what I'm hoping to call a "Chai Tea Muffin," but I'll wait to report on that until after I actually venture to make it--think an increase in the spice level, changing out the milk for cooled black tea (brewed dark), and replacing the molasses with a lesser quanity of honey. Mmmmmm.