Today has been dreich. There’s no other word for it…apart from perhaps horrendous, vile, wintery… You get my drift. The weather in Edinburgh has been bad. Let’s put it that way.
Despite what my foodie magazines, tv adverts and the supermarkets are telling me, it is not summer and my body is simply not craving the delights of summer. Fresh strawberries and cream or a lush green salad are no where near satisfying when it’s blowing a gale and chucking it down outside!
So when I eventually emerged from hibernation at around 3pm this afternoon, I was craving something comforting. Not prepared to brave the pouring rain to pop to the shops, I had to make the most of what I had in the kitchen: cheese, a half empty jar of sun dried tomatoes and an almost out of date tub of buttermilk. Savoury muffins it was going to be!
Double cheese and sun dried tomato muffins
Makes 12
Preparation time 15 minutes, baking time 25 minutes
Ingredients
150ml sunflower oil (I used the leftover oil from the jar of sun dried tomatoes and topped it up with oil from a bottle)
1 egg
284ml carton buttermilk
70ml milk
500g self raising flour
1tsp salt
1 tsp English mustard powder
150g mature cheddar, cut into small cubes
25g parmesan, grated
100g sundried tomatoes, chopped
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan and grease a 12 hole muffin tin.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, egg, buttermilk and milk. In another bowl, mix together the flour, salt and mustard powder. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the flour before stirring in the cheeses and chopped tomatoes. Be careful not to mix too much. The ingredients should be just combined and no more.
- Divide the mixture between the holes in the tin (I use an ice cream scoop for this) and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins have risen and are starting to brown on top.
- Enjoy while still warm!
