Today’s recipe takes the standard lemon muffin up a notch with this made from scratch Ricotta Lemon Muffins recipe. Adding some Tuscany flavors with ricotta cheese and fruity olive oil makes these muffins rich and delicious.
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Let’s get all lemony today and bake some gloriously rich muffins that are made with two unusual ingredients for muffins. What makes these pastries so good is the addition of creamy whole milk ricotta cheese and olive oil that takes an ordinary muffin and adds a deep rich flavor and a fluffy tenderness that is a bit like a cake.
Everyone needs a good lemon muffin recipe and you will love the bright lemon flavor and the super simple recipe. And if you bake with lemons a lot, make sure to read this guide on The Juice of One Lemon – How Much Is That, so you will know the correct measurements.
Why add ricotta cheese in baking
- We need to get past the fact that ricotta is only for pasta dishes because it is really delicious in baked goods like cakes, bread, and cookies.
- The creaminess of the ricotta adds moisture to baked goods and this cheese has more of a milky texture to it, which is perfect for a lighter crumb.
- Ricotta has a very mild, sweet taste, so it does not impart a strong flavor to what you are baking.
- Use Ricotta instead of heavy cream cheese or mascarpone cheese for a lighter texture.
- Have you ever wondered what to do with leftover ricotta? Bake a batch of these delicious muffins.
Lemon Ricotta Muffin Ingredients
Let’s bake muffins
This recipe is so simple using the basic muffin mix technique which means adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mixing them together.
One thing you will find is these muffins stay a fairly light brown color.
Step 1. Prepare the muffin tins with paper cup liners. This is optional, but you can add a small layer of rice to the bottom of the muffin tin before adding the paper liners to reduce the browning of the baked muffin. See the tips below.
Step 2. Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt to a large mixing bowl and mix well.
Step 3. In another bowl add the ricotta cheese, olive oil, water, fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, and the beaten egg and mix completely
Step 4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until the flour is incorporated and moistened. Be easy on mixing so the batter doesn’t get overworked and in return, your muffins will reward you with the perfect texture. You will have a nice thick batter.
Step 5. Scoop the batter into the paper-lined muffin cups, fill 2/3 full and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack.
Step 6. Make the lemon glaze by mixing the powdered sugar with lemon juice and lemon zest and drizzle over the cooled muffins.
Drizzle on plenty of lemon glaze and a sprinkle of lemon zest on top of each muffin to add even more of that fresh lemon flavor everyone loves. Don’t you just want to take a bite?
Baking Tips
- Whole milk ricotta works best for baked goods because of the added fat content.
- When using ricotta cheese, mix it into the butter to make sure it is whipped well before adding it to dry ingredients.
- To get that beautiful domed top on the muffins, start baking them at a high temperature for 5 minutes then reduce the temperature to finish baking.
- Add a small layer of white rice to the bottom of each muffin cup to keep the bottom of the muffins from turning brown and the rice absorbs the oils from the batter. Try it!
More baking inspiration
- Instead of ricotta cheese, these two recipes use cottage cheese for the base. Cottage Cheese Crescent Rolls and Cinnamon Crescent Rolls.
- For scone lovers, bake these Lemon Scones that are filled with fresh blueberries.
- We have cookies too! You will love this easy recipe for Lemon Shortbreads.
- Let’s add some more favorite muffins to this list. Maple Walnut Muffins are always a delicious fall flavor and the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins are a favorite all year long.
- Try this Lemon Baked Ricotta Cheese Dip that is deliciously creamy and baked with lemon and herbs. Perfect with a good loaf of bread.
- These tender Italian Ricotta Cookies are a perfect lemony cookie to make all year long.
Lemon Muffin Faq’s
For this recipe, ricotta cheese works the best because of the difference in moisture content of the cheeses.
Baking Essentials
This recipe requires a few items for baking and I have found a good set of glass bowls are necessary for mixing batters, and this set with ten different size bowls will cover your mixing needs.
Try to invest in good heavy standard muffin pans that heat evenly and do not warp. These muffin pans have never failed me.
Don’t forget the paper liners for your muffin tins.
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Ricotta Lemon Muffins with Olive Oil
Ingredients
Muffin Ingredients
- 1¾ cup AP flour
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoons salt
- ½ cup water
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ¾ cup ricotta cheese
- 1 tablespoon zested lemon
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 large egg beaten
Lemon Glaze
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice freshly squeezed
- lemon zest zest of one lemon
Instructions
Mixing the muffins
- Preheat oven to 425° F.
- Prepare a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. Optionally, place a teaspoon of white rice in the bottom of the muffin cups then add the paper liners which helps to absorb the grease and keeps the bottom of the muffin from getting too brown.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt
- In another bowl mix the water, olive oil, ricotta, lemon rind, lemon juice, and the beaten egg until well combined.
- Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir just until moistened.
- Spoon the batter into paper-lined muffin pans about 2/3 full.
- Bake for 5 minutes at 425°F then lower the temperature to 375°F for 10-12 until the muffins are brown. These muffins do not get deep brown.
- Let cool in the pans for about five minutes then remove to a cooling rack.
Lemon Glaze
- Add the powdered sugar to a small bowl and use a wire whisk to break up any clumps.
- Zest one lemon and then juice the lemon. Add 1 tablespoon of the juice to the powdered sugar along with most of the lemon zest. Reserve some of the zest to sprinkle on top of the glazed muffins. If the glaze is too thick add a small amount of lemon juice or water until it is the desired consistency.
- Mix the glaze until it is smooth then drizzle on top of the cooled muffins and sprinkle with the reserved lemon zest.
Storing the muffins
- Keep the cooled muffins in an airtight container for up to three days.
Notes
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Nutrition
First Published: June 11, 2021… Last Updated: June 30, 2022, with updated content for better readability.
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About Jere’ Cassidy
From learning to cook on a farm in Indiana to culinary school in California, my passion for food is never-ending. Turning on my oven to bake something for friends and family is my happy place. I am glad to be sharing sweet and savory family-friendly recipes for your cooking and baking inspiration.
Thank you for your recipes! I will be making these delicious looking muffins tonight and I love that this recipe uses olive oil. My question is about the serving. You have serves 12 and then you instruct to prepare 6 muffin pan. So is it 6 muffins or 12 muffins with the original recipe.
Lemon and ricotta are a match made in heaven 🙂 These were moist and delicious and stored great for the next day too!
The lemon ricotta flavor is truly so delicious! These muffins were light, moist, perfectly sweet and so good.
Best lemon muffins ever made! So fluffy! I added some poppy seeds! Delicious!
I had some leftover ricotta so this was the perfect way to use it! These muffins are so good!
This recipe is fantastic!
I used GF AP and it worked out well!
So fluffy and light!
I added a few fresh blueberries on top before baking!
Could not think of a better way to add ricotta to baked goods. These muffins are so soft and tender and full of flavor.
These muffins look really delicious.
I am so excited to make this and pair it with my black coffee.
These are just the change of pace I needed today. It’s been so many heavy, chocolatey treats lately, and these are so light, airy and lemony. Delicious!
This looks wonderful! However, im confused the recipe does not mention water or butter, but the step by step instruction shows “mixing butter” and “add water”, could you please clarify that, thank you!
Hi Grace, all fixed and thanks for catching my mistake.
Yum! I can’t wait to try these. I love anything lemon and I have some ricotta cheese leftover from lasagna last night. It’s a perfect win-win.