Golden einkorn + moist farmers cheese + rich chocolate = the most fragrant and wonderful pastries and cookies. When I first combined these ingredients into a fun twisty flower design, I went ‘wow’ as soon as they came out of the oven, beautiful, puffy and each unique, I just wanted to stare at them. Thank goodness for photography to be able to capture that beauty and have that lovely memory and inspiration to bake them again. Coming up with a name was a challenge – muffins? Cupcakes? I settled on cup cookies because I use the same dough to make soft cookies but when they are twisted into a cup and filled with chocolate, they become moist like cupcakes.
Holidays are the time to enjoy delicious and beautiful food but it doesn’t mean having to go crazy with sugar and overly processed treats. These little guys are made with a good amount of soft cheese, Russian farmers cheese or Italian ricotta, which I love and use in a lot of my recipes; this love probably comes from my Russian upbringing – farmers cheese (tvorog) was used in all things imaginable to stretch flour and increase nutritional value of meals. It adds a lot of protein to baked goods without affecting texture. Einkorn is superior to any gluten flour, and even being the oldest cultivated form of wheat, it hasn’t been hybridized and has the same genetic makeup as it did thousands of years ago; it’s higher in protein and lower in starch than most other grains; it has the most wonderful, naturally sweeter, taste and beautiful yellow color.
This recipe is definitely more involved than other things I make so I reserve for special occasions, when I can play around the kitchen with a glass of wine while my kids watch and help.
HOW TO MAKE TWISTY EINKORN CHOCOLATE MUFFINS
Ingredients
1 cup (200g) farmers cheese (or ricotta cheese, strained in an sieve for an hour)
2 eggs
1/3 cup (70g) sugar – use more sugar if you like a lot of sweetness – I don’t 🙂
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (55g) butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups (250g) all-purpose einkorn flour (I use Jovial)
1 cup (200g) or 2 bars of chocolate (I used Perugina 85% chocolate on these photos)
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Instructions
In a mini food processor or blender, mix together farmers cheese (or ricotta), eggs, butter, sugar and salt until smooth with no visible grains of cheese.
Sift einkorn flour with baking powder into a mixing bowl (I use a plain strainer for sifting); add wet mixture.
Start mixing it at first with a spoon, then your hands until it comes together into a nice ball. Because of farmers cheese, the dough is going to be very easy to handle, and it’s unlikely that you will need extra flour. But in the case that your farmers cheese was too wet, you may add extra flour by tablespoons until the dough feels right.Â
Transfer the dough onto floured work surface and separate it into 12 parts. What I do is roll the dough into a ‘sausage’, then cut it into four segments, then stack those segment next to each other, and cut into threes:
Divide each of the 12 pieces into three segments and roll them out to circles of about 3.5-4 inches in diameter.
In a heavy bottom sauce pan, melt the chocolate with cream. Brush each circle with melted chocolate leaving a little room by the edges. Fold each circle in half, then fold in half again to get a quarter segment.
Line three quarter segments together with the open side facing up so that the bottom corners are about 2 inches apart from each other.
Roll the segments into a flower-like shape and place into a muffin pan lined with paper cups.
Repeat the steps until all 12 cups are filled.
Bake in a pre-heated to 350ºF (180ºC) oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops start to brown.
Serve warm or cold.
Twisty Einkorn Chocolate Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup (200g) farmers cheese (or ricotta cheese, strained in an sieve for an hour)
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup (70g) sugar use more sugar if you like a lot of sweetness - I don't 🙂
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons (55g) butter room temperature
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose einkorn flour
- 1 cup (200g) or 2 bars of chocolate
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
Instructions
- In a mini food processor or blended, mix together farmers cheese (or ricotta), eggs, butter, sugar and salt until smooth with no visible grains of cheese.
- Sift einkorn flour with baking powder into a mixing bowl (I use a plain strainer for sifting); add wet mixture.
- Start mixing it at first with a spoon, then your hands until it comes together into a nice ball. Because of farmers cheese, the dough is going to be very easy to handle, and it's unlikely that you will need extra flour. But in the case that your farmers cheese was too wet, you may add extra flour by tablespoons until the dough feels right.
- Transfer the dough onto floured work surface and separate it into 12 parts. What I do is roll the dough into a 'sausage', then cut it into four segments, then stack those segment next to each other, and cut into threes.
- Divide each of the 12 pieces into three segments and roll them out to circles of about 3.5-4 inches in diameter.
- In a heavy bottom sauce pan, melt the chocolate with cream. Brush each circle with melted chocolate leaving a little room by the edges. Fold each circle in half, then fold in half again to get a quarter segment.
- Line three quarter segments together with the open side facing up so that the bottom corners are about 2 inches apart from each other.
- Roll the segments into a flower-like shape and place into a muffin pan lined with paper cups.
- Repeat the steps until all 12 cups are filled.
- Bake in a pre-heated to 350ºF (180ºC) oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops start to brown.
- Serve warm or cold.
