This month’s challenge was similar to the last, in that the basic recipe wasn’t terribly difficult, but there were plenty of ways to customize and experiment with the recipe to come up with something novel. I didn’t have a ton of extra time in the kitchen this month, so I focused on trying to achieve one quickbread recipe that did the trick from the very beginning, and I was fortunate that I was able to do that.

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

Since I’m trying to avoid sweet foods in my 2012 weight loss challenge, I went savory with this challenge, and made a ricotta and green onion muffin. I used this recipe as a starting point, but made the following alterations:

• Halved the recipe to make 12 mini muffins instead of a dozen full-sized muffins.
• Used einkorn flour instead of whole-wheat flour.
• Omitted the sugar.
• Added 1 tsp each of ground cumin and garlic powder.
• Instead of a 1/4 tsp of salt, I used 1/4 tsp of sea salt and 1/4 tsp of no-salt salt (potassium chloride)
• Substituted soured milk (milk with vinegar) for the buttermilk, which I didn’t have on hand.

The result? Really, really delicious. The aroma was amazing as it baked (since I was used my mini-muffin tin, I was actually able to do so in my toaster oven). They looked gorgeous, and tasted divine. Probably the best part, though, was the texture: light, fluffy, and moist. Even tossing them in the microwave for 10 seconds a pop warmed them up without sacrificing the texture.

Pics after the jump.