Muffin making…

I’ve made muffins (these made with my class in 2012 for the Jubilee) many times before with a variety of fillings, but usually these fillings have been sweet. Here in France we often have friends visit for aperos or we serve aperos before a meal. There are around a dozen items which I regularly serve a variation of, but sometimes the need arises to add to my repertoire.

Today I tried savoury muffins. I couldn’t find a recipe that I was completely happy with (basically because I didn’t have some of the required ingredients!) so based on my research I came up with my own recipe. My idea was to make two types of savoury mini-muffin which I would then freeze and warm up prior to serving. I hindsight I probably could have made three varieties.The two fillings I used were bacon, mushroom with onion and blue cheese with onion.

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The recipe…

SAVOURY MINI MUFFINS CHEZ BROTHERHOOD

Makes: 72 mini or 24 large muffins

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter

2 eggs

250ml milk

400g plain flour

2 heaped teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons Herbes de Provence

Salt and pepper, to taste

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan

Fresh chives or rosemary to decorate

Fillings

· 100g lardons, small chopped onion and 4 mushrooms sauted

· 100g blue cheese and a small red onion fried gently

· 100g goat’s cheese and 50g chutney

· 100g smoked salmon and 50g cream cheese

· 100g chirizo and 50g sun dried tomatoes

· 100g mature cheddar and 50g olives

Method

Preparation about 20 mins and cook 15+ mins, but in reality I needed to recycle my muffin tins so the overall cooking time was much longer.

· Preheat the oven to 200 C / Gas 6. Grease a muffin tins, or line with paper muffin cases.

· Melt the butter and set aside to cool.

· In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs with the milk then stir in the melted butter.

· Sift the flour into a mixing bowl then add the baking powder, herbes de Provence, salt and pepper, mix well. Gradually fold in the egg mixture until loosely combined. It may look a bit lumpy, but don’t overwork.

· Divide the mixture into two portions and add any two of the suggested fillings or come up with ones to your taste!

· Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and no more than up to 3/4 full (this allows room for the muffins to rise).

· Bake for 15-20 minutes for the mini muffins until golden brown, or longer for larger ones. ** Depending on your filling you may need to be flexible here**. You can afford to taste the odd one to check!!

· Remove from the oven and serve hot or cold.

These will freeze once cool. To serve warm for a few minutes.

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It feels a bit odd because in my former life ‘method’ was always followed by ‘fair test’, ‘results’, ‘conclusion’ and evaluation.

No doubt the ‘evaluation’ will come fairly soon. As the old saying goes “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” and we await our next set of  guinea pigs, or perhaps that should be ‘friends with taste’…