Roasted Garlic Muffins with Sun Dried Tomato & Gouda ~ #MuffinMonday

As someone who bakes a lot, usually with a small child underfoot and sometimes with a 7 month old on my hip, you have to be organized. If it weren’t for extreme organization there’s no way I would get any baking accomplished at all. This is where mise en place becomes necessity.

If you aren’t familiar with mise en place, it means “everything in place.” It’s simply the act of measuring out, preparing, organizing and arranging the ingredients that you will need to cook or bake with. Because of this type of organization I’m able to easily put everything together (most of the time) without stopping or sucking up more time, even if I have Molly on my hip.

Let’s flashback to a few days ago… Imagine if you will the aroma of roasting garlic wafting from the oven. My mise en place is all ready to go. I’m only waiting on the garlic to finish roasting. Molly is contentedly dragging herself across the living room, exploring all there is to explore. Yes, dragging. She is thisclose to crawling but doesn’t have her belly up off the floor just yet so she either does her Army crawl where she pulls herself around with her arms or she does an inchworm type move, pulling with her arms and then scrunching up her knees toward her belly then she repeats. It’s all so very cute.

I was busying myself packing and getting ready to go to a wedding (my sister-in-law got married this weekend!!) that everyone was in; my husband, myself and the kids so you can imagine I had a lot of preparation to ensure everyone was ready to go. So as I’m doing my thing and Molly’s doing her thing I hear Maddy is chatting away to herself in the playroom. I hear something about “dirty … clean it up …”

I go in to find shredded gouda in her play oven inside paper muffin cups. Apparently she was making muffins too … And she used my mise en place! Upon further examination I then see there’s shredded gouda all over the carpet, and I mean ALL over the carpet. (As I’m typing this I really wish I had taken a picture. I could have included it here.) However, Maddy was at the ready with her little broom and dust pan, sweeping it all up and dumping into the trash while simultaneously smooshing it into the carpet. I can tell you now first hand, that it is very difficult to get squished cheese off of a rug. She had the very best of intentions though so she definitely gets brownie points for trying to clean up her own mess!

After I was done scrubbing gouda out of my rug, I got back to baking these muffins. The garlic was soft and smelling sweet. I got some more gouda shredded and ready to go. I combined those two tantalizing tastes with sun dried tomatoes and a little fresh basil. All together this made for a flavorful combination of savory ingredients that resulted in a muffin that is the star of the show. This isn’t a “serve on the side” kind of muffin. Oh no, this is a “have me for lunch” kind of muffin. Front and center, that’s where this muffin is going.

*Do you like roasted garlic? How do you serve it?

Enjoy!

~K

One Year Ago: Olive Oil Cake with Candied Oranges

Roasted Garlic Muffins with Sun Dried Tomato & Gouda

1 medium head of garlic

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided

2 large eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature

3/4 cup small curd cottage cheese

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup shredded gouda cheese

1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped into small pieces (not packing in oil)

4-6 large basil leaves, chopped

– Position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F.

– Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

– Cut the top quarter off the garlic head so that the cloves are exposed. Discard the top quarter. Place the garlic on a small sheet of aluminum foil, drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Next, fold and seal the sides of the foil to create a pouch around the garlic.

– Place directly on the oven rack and bake for about 35 minutes, or until the garlic smells sweet and the cloves are soft. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes without unwrapping. Maintain the oven’s temperature.

– Unwrap the garlic and squeeze out the soft garlic into a medium bowl. Discard the rest of the garlic bulb. Mash the roasted garlic with a fork. Whisk in the eggs, milk, cottage cheese, and remaining 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Set aside for 10 minutes to infuse the garlic flavor into the mixture.

– In a large bowl, combine both flours, sugar, baking powder and salt.

– Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just until combined. Gently fold in the gouda, sun dried tomatoes and basil.

– Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin until about 3/4 full.

– Bake for 20 minutes, or until the muffins have lightly browned, rounded tops and a toothpick inserted in the center of one muffin comes out with a crumb or two attached.

– Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for 10 minutes then remove muffins and cool 5 more minutes. Serve warm.

– Enjoy!