For a fluffier version, see Version 2.0!

It’s been a year since I repatriated, and I’m still having trouble with the groceries here. I’ll spare you the spiel so I don’t have to retitle this blog Vague Complaints of a Wandering Food Blogger,* but I’ve noticed that the herbs sold in the supermarket are much larger quantities than they were in Japan. I had a lot of fresh rosemary leftover from another recipe and wanted to do something a little different for breakfast, so I checked out this muffin recipe from Kitchen Treaty,  one of my favorite vegetarian blogs.

Because I prefer my muffins sans glaze, I reworked the recipe to have the rosemary on the inside. The orange juice and zest really punch up the flavor of the rosemary and help keep the muffin moist without the glaze.

Japan notes: this is a piece of cake if you make your own ricotta (see notes). Muffins are the best for the moven, and you can use silicon muffin cups for maximum ease of baking and eco-friendliness.

Rosemary-Orange Ricotta Muffins

Adapted from Kitchen Treaty

Yields 9 muffins.

A. Dry ingredients
1 cup (125 g) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (72 g) whole-wheat pastry flour (okashiyô no komugiko,お菓子の小麦粉)
1/4 cup (50 g) sugar (guranyûtô, グラニュー糖)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (jûsô, 重曹)
1/4 teaspoon salt (shio, 塩 )

B. Wet(ish) ingredients
3/4 cup (185 g) ricotta cheese**
1 TBSP finely chopped rosemary (rôzumarî, ローズマリー)
zest of one large orange – about 2 tsp (orenji, オーレン)
3/4 cup (180 mL) orange juice (~1 large orange)
1/4 cup (60 mL) olive oil (orîbu oiru, オリーブオイル)
1 large egg (tamago, 卵)

Equipment
-A muffin tin (mafin kata, マフィン型) or silicon muffin cups (mafin kappu, マフィンカップ)
-Zester or grater (oroshigane, おろし金)

1. Preheat oven to 375º F (190º  C) and grease 9 muffin tin/cups.
2. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Mix wet ingredients in a small bowl.
4. Combine into large bowl; do not over stir. Divide evenly among 9 muffin cups.
5. Bake for 15 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Serve hot or room-temperature. Store in airtight container; refrigerate in warmer months. Best fresh, good for about 3-4 days.

Notes
*Other contenders: The Answer is Always Muffins, Another Frackin’ Fandom Cake, Taming Unmanageable Herbs, When the Hell is Rhubarb Season? (answer: now)
**If you can’t find ricotta or prefer to make your own, here’s Smitten Kitchen‘s, which is the closest approximation of my rather slap-dash version. If you can’t get cheesecloth, you can use cloth for steaming rice: fukashi nuno (ふかし布). I tend to use only whole milk and no cream, but it does end up a bit dry. For this recipe, I used store-bought ricotta that I bought for another recipe.