A friend gave me a mission on Facebook…find or recreate the recipe for Solly’s Cottage Cheese muffins. Never having heard of these animals, I went out in search of one to taste test. Mmmmm…quite lovely…meaty but moist, mild flavoured…but tasty. Yummy protein pick-me-up on their own, would be fantastic with a bowl of soup. Not sweet, but not overly savoury either.
A challenge. OK, I’m game!
Round 1 – Ding!
An internet search provided loads of things that were called cottage cheese muffins, but I found one in particular that claimed to be a Solly’s recreation. So…I grabbed the recipe and halved it (after all, if they are awful I don’t want a dozen hanging around) and whipped up a batch.
The first batch started out like this:
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 egg
1/2 cup + 6 Tbsp flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/8 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
dash of salt
Stir wet ingredients together in one bowl. Stir dry stuff together in a second bowl. Add one to the other and stir gently only until moistened.
The recipe said bake for 30-35 minutes, but didn’t give a temperature, so I opted for 350F
Less than stellar results.
They were tasty, but a bit dry (way… way drier compared to the Solly’s one I ate), and didn’t rise as much as I’d expected. And the cornmeal? Definitely didn’t belong in there. Too much parmesan too. I liked it, but it was definitely heavier flavoured than the mild mannered muffin I’d eaten earlier that day. The Solly’s muffin was eggier, moister, meatier….
So…what to change for round 2.
#1 – less parmesan
#2 – more egg
#3 – no cornmeal
#4 – A bit more cottage cheese
#5 – more flour to compensate for the removal of the cornmeal
#6 – throw out the old baking powder and baking soda and buy fresh stuff…and use a bit more
I’ll let you know how it goes…..
