muffins baking in the morning

I have been baking for the 1000 Faces kiosk at Trappeze for a few weeks now, and I must say that it is one of the highlights of my week. I get up early in the morning, gather ingredients, brew some coffee and play around with muffins and scones and whatever else my heart desires before anyone else in my house is stirring. Shaping a round of dough and slicing it into perfect pie pieces for scones is one of the little pleasures in life. I have found a really lovely base recipe for scones that produces such a light, fluffy, almost cake-like result, that I can't help but make a few extra every time to munch on throughout the following days. My favorites have been chocolate chip with a hint of lemon zest, blueberry made with the frozen leftovers of a giant bucket of berries I bought from Jim at the end of his season, and maple pecan made with chopped up pecans from McMullan Family Farm.


I have also found a muffin base recipe that I am utterly delighted with. It calls for ricotta cheese and buttermilk, and makes what can almost be described as cheesecake combined with a muffin. It is so rich and luscious on the tongue that it almost feels like a luxury to be eating them for breakfast. Some of my favorite flavors so far have included cherry chocolate, lemon poppy seed, ginger apple walnut, and pear pecan.