Ricotta cherry muffins

Back in January I raved about the daily muffins at Café Leva that became fairly regular breakfasts on my way to class. While the café is on my way to work this summer, I made a batch of Leva-esque muffins recently that had me set for a couple weeks.

I worked from this recipe for ricotta blueberry muffins and ended up swapping out the blueberries for fresh cherries (which someone graciously dropped off at our office) and reduced the sugar by a 1/4 cup. I also made the ricotta in house after being inspired by the DIY post over at Cream and Sugar. They're right - it is a truly easy cheese to prepare. Making it myself also meant I got to choose the type of milk used - a combo of milk and cream from Avalon and D Dutchmen dairies that we already had in the fridge. The two left the cheese with a beautiful creamy-sweet flavour.

The muffin recipe itself was excellent. I forgot the sugar on top, but they were certainly sweet enough without it. While the inside was moist and fluffy, the exteriors became lovely and crisp - so Leva-esque.