I never get tired of making muffins and have had a lot of fun with this recipe. It started (as usual) as an attempt to use cottage cheese, but evolved into an experiment in getting really tall, high rising, crowns. Maybe the cottage cheese is part of the magic because these chocolate muffins do rise high. They are moist and chocolaty and sweet enough to where they could serve as breakfast, snack, or even dessert muffins.
Small Batch
This is a relatively small batch recipe. It should give you 5 medium size muffins or 4 very large ones. You can bake them with or without cupcake papers, so long as you grease and flour the cups well. They're sticky! As for doubling, I haven't tried it yet but I don't see why this recipe wouldn't double.
Cottage Cheese Chocolate Muffins Ingredients
I made a lot of variations and played with ingredients, so for this recipe it seemed appropriate to do an ingredient rundown.
- All Purpose Flour -- I tried different types and had the best results with bleached AP. Unbleached is fine too. You can also use bread flour, in which case you'll probably need to add 2 tablespoons of milk, as bread flour tends to absorb more moisture.
- Salt
- Leavening Agents --The batter is lower in usual than baking powder because the recipe gets acid from the natural cocoa powder and cottage cheese. Using Dutch cocoa powder would probably cause shorter muffins.
- Sugar -- I used white, but a little brown would probably be good too.
- Cottage Cheese -- Small curd, any fat%
- Egg
- Vanilla -- A little almond extract might be a nice addition,too.
- Oil -- I've used almond oil and buttery flavored olive oil which we buy at the specialty olive oil store.
- Almond Flour -- Normally I'd mix this in with the regular flour, but in this case I threw it in last. It adds a little protein, structure and flavor plus it soaks up some moisture so the batter is thicker and can be piled. If you don't have almond flour, just leave it out and use an extra 1 ½ tablespoons AP flour.
Recipe
Chocolate Cottage Cheese Muffins
Ingredients
- ½ cup all-purpose flour, measure with a light hand or weigh (65 gram)
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, natural (24 grams)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar (70 grams)
- ½ cup cottage cheese well drained so mostly curds
- 1 large egg
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ tablespoons vegetable oil, olive oil or almond oil (Sorry for the weird amount)
- ⅓ cup almond flour
- ⅓ cup semisweet or dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line 4 or 5 muffin cups with paper liners or grease thoroughly with your fat of choice and dust with flour.
- Combine the flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a medium-sized bowl.
- In a mixing bowl, mix the sugar, cottage cheese, egg, vanilla and oil.
- Add the flour mixture to the cheese mixture and stir until blended, then stir in the almond flour and the chocolate chips. The batter should be a thick muffin batter (a reader noted hers was almost like a dough, but mine is usually quite a bit looser than dough).
- Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups going all the way to the top. You should get about 5 large muffins.
- Bake in the middle of the oven for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove the pan from the oven, then remove the muffins from the pan and place them on a rack to cool. Let cool for 30 minutes before serving.
Anna says
Another thought about the consistency of the batter -- perhaps doubling or tripling made it thicker? Sometimes things don't scale exactly the same.
Anna says
Glad you liked them! It's possible your batter was a little thicker than mine because it shouldn't be a dough. Maybe you used more flour or your cheese was dryer or cocoa absorbed more moisture. There are so many little variables, but I am going to stick with the term "batter" for muffin making since I've never heard of "muffin dough". That said, you are totally right about putting a note on the consistency and I'll add that. I think of it as a "thick batter that you can pile" but looser than chocolate chip cookie dough.
J says
Tastes good. But it’s dough, not batter. Should make a note on the consistency that you’re looking for when making.
Anna says
Hi Tracy,
Thanks for feedback regarding the batch size. I tend to make smaller batches of everything and am glad you were happy with six muffins.
Tracy says
Absolutely Delicious!
All my husband wanted for his birthday was chocolate muffins for breakfast. I didn't want to make 12 muffins as we have been limiting sweets and didn't want the temptation sitting around. This recipe was perfect and so so good! I only had whole wheat flour on hand, so I did have to add a tablespoon or two of milk as my batter was a little too thick. I blended the cottage cheese, egg, vanilla and oil (I used melted butter) in a blender until smooth and poured it into the dry ingredients. I got 6 regular sized muffins that were light, fluffy and so chocolatey! I can tell that this is a recipe that I will come back to again and again! Thanks for creating such a tasty recipe!
Kerry Haysman says
Great muffins
Ashley says
Was looking for a way to use up some cottage cheese and found this recipe. These are so good! I doubled the recipe to get 12 muffins and I did blend the cottage cheese with the eggs. Whole fam loves them. Thank you!
Anna says
Sarah, thanks for the tip on the immersion blender. That makes total sense with the picky kids factor. There are probably lots of adults who would like to hide every little curd as well.
Sarah says
I blended the wet ingredients with my immersion blender (picky kids would freak out if there were white chunks visible lol) and WOW these were a hit!!
Anna says
Thanks for the review, Carolyn! I'm so glad you enjoyed them.
Carolyn says
Thank you for this recipe. These are so good. Not too sweet, nice and chocolatey. And nice that it doesn’t make too many. I only had Dutch processed cocoa and used that. My cottage cheese was very thick so I didn’t drain it. I was a bit concerned that the batter was so stiff but they turned out great and the muffins were nice and moist, even 2 days later.
Anna says
Darlene, thanks so much for giving them a test run! I got the smooth, shiny, rounded tops on a few of my batches too, but I'll bet it's more pronounced without the almond flour. Thanks again for trying them.
Darlene says
These were delicious! I did not have almond flour, so I followed your advice to add an additional 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of AP flour. I did not drain my small curd cottage cheese from Aldi's and had no problem mounding the batter high in the cupcake liner. The baked muffins rose well above my standard cupcake liners, and I wondered why you chose not to make 6 regular-size muffins. They turned out moist with a deep chocolate flavor and a smooth top similar to the top you get on brownies baked from a mix (which is a good thing). Also, be sure to check at 18 minutes because mine were done at the minimum time.