Strawberry ricotta muffins

WOW! These are seriously so good! You must try them.

The recipe is from here

Ingredients:
2 cups medium strawberries ** see note below
3/4 cup ricotta
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
10 Tbsp. butter melted and cooled, divided
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. lime zest (or lemon)
2 cups flour
2 tsp.baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Sanding sugar (optional)

makes 12 muffins

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Gently wash, hull, and cut strawberries into quarters. Place berries on a cooling rack over a sheet pan. Bake until strawberries are partially dried, about 45 minutes. Let cool. (**note: I used a full 2 lbs of strawberries. My thoughts are..the more the better!)

Increase oven to 400 degrees. Brush a 12-mold muffin tin with 2 Tbsp. melted butter. Set aside.

In a bowl, whisk together ricotta, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in remaining butter.

In a large bowl, use your fingertips to rub together sugar and lime or lemon zest until sugar is moist. Mix in flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

Use a spatula to gently but quickly fold ricotta mixture into dry ingredients. Don’t overwork it. The batter will be thick and heavy. Stir in strawberries and spoon batter evenly into muffin tins. Top with sanding sugar if desired. Bake until tops of muffins are golden and springy to the touch, about 20-25

What is sanding sugar you ask? Well, its that course type sugar that you see on top of sugar cookies. Its a great touch to the top of muffins. You can find it in any party supply or craft store in the baking/cake decorating section.

{Review}
Holy moly. I {heart} these muffins
I used lemon zest rather than lime. But, I imagine the lime is just as good
Beware: like the recipe says..when you mix the dry & wet ingredients together initially the dough will be really stiff. This worried me a bit but once I added berries it loosened up because of the extra moisture


{Serve with}
Coffee or tea? or nothing. They are that good.

{Time}
45 min to dry out berries and 20 min in oven