Ode to the Savoury Muffin
Coming to New Zealand has been a wonderful culinary experience, amongst other things. Meat pies! Kumara! Pickle! Steak and egg burgers! (Only one of the above exclamation marks is sarcastic.) Most of these so-called discoveries are common to Commonwealth countries, I presume, but living in Canada many of the British influences have been submerged by our southern neighbour. So no flaky pastry meat pies. No pickle. No egg burgers.
One thing we must have in Canada but which I’d never seen before coming to NZ is the savoury muffin. It’s exactly like a normal blueberry or chocolate muffin, but instead of sweet, it’s savoury. (Duh.) And it’s not a savoury scone, because it’s, well, a muffin. But ohhhhh, the things you can put in it. Broccoli and blue cheese. Capsicum and feta and corn. Avocado and bacon. Mmmm. If you make the giant variety, it’s good enough for a lunch. And somehow, it just makes me feel more comfortable than a sweet muffin.
One of the muffin gurus in New Zealand is 80s TV Cooking Host and practical cooking expert Alison Holst. Her recipe for the Champion Cheese Muffins, which can be mini-, normal-, or giant-sized, is pretty much fool-proof, and then you can mess with it and add other things. Enjoy.
Alison Holst’s Champion Cheese Muffins
Put 2 cups (200g) grated tasty cheese*, 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour**, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp sugar and a pinch of cayenne pepper into a large bowl. Mix lightly with your fingers to combine.
In a small container beat 1 egg and 1 cup milk until evenly combined. Pour all the liquid onto the dry ingredients, then fold the two mixtures together, taking care not to overmix.
Spoon the mixture into 12 medium muffin pans, which have been buttered or sprayed with non-stick spray.
Optional toppings: Sprinkle with a little extra cheese and paprika or chilli powder.
Bake at 210 degrees celcius for about 12 minutes, until the muffins spring back when pressed in the middle and are golden brown.
*Tasty cheese = cheddar cheese.
**If you don’t have self-raising flour, you can just use ordinary flour and 1 1/2 tsp baking powder.
– Jean AAR
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I am from NZ and we have so many savory muffins. My favorite is Pumpkin and Feta topped with toasted pumpkin seeds. My local cafe makes them and they come out of the oven just in time to pick up one with a coffee as I head into work. The feta is warm and melting and the pumpkin ensures it stays very moist. Alison Holst, akin to Julia Childs, is a national icon here and we have been making her muffins all our lives. I can say that they will freeze really well. I make a batch most weekends with what ever I have bacon, chicken, cheese, ham, zucchini, carrot and freeze them for school lunches. I pull it out of the freezer as the kids head off and by morning tea they are just right. And it kept the rest of the food cool in the lunch box. Great to see we are exporting a Kiwi Favorite!!!!
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Good stuff! I travelled to Britain this summer and had some afternoon tea and scones, and it was so delicious I decided to try and make my own last week. I might have broken a few rules though – I found a bunch of random scone recipes here and made 6 different ones! My friends were so happy when I brought them round for tea and scones. Lots of fun!
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Bought the ingredients for these last night, and will be giving them a try this weekend. Very excited!
Never tried freezing them yet, because they seem to go pretty quickly (lunch + afternoon tea + dinner) x 2 = Gone in Two Days. But my friend makes all of Allison Holst’s muffins, and all she does is freeze them, and it seems to work out pretty well. Go for it! (But let me know if it doesn’t.)
These sound yummy. Do they freeze well?
I am making these as soon as I can. I love Red Lobster’s cheddar biscuits, and cheese in general. I wonder how they’d taste with Asiago cheese? I think I’ll try it.
Oh Tim Hortons. I miss their chicken salad sandwiches and a nice cream soup. Siiiiiigh. The good thing about this recipe is that because there’s so much cheese, you don’t put in any butter.
I’ve never tried a savoury muffin, but they sound good. My mother has always made savoury biscuits, which I absolutely love. Not surprisingly, bacon and cheese was my favorite. How do you go wrong with bacon and cheese?
Since the likelihood of me ever baking savoury muffins is slim to none, I think I’ll pass this recipe on to Mom with the hopes she’ll try it out (and invite me to dinner).
I worked in an office for a while, and my Friday lunch treat was from a restaurant down the street that had the best cream soups I have ever tasted – I had whatever the cream soup of the day was – and a cheese muffin. The combination was sublime!
Now, I’m a big fan of Tim Hortons’ ham and cheese tea biscuits, (it’s my and my mother’s guilty indulgence when we have tea together) but I think I’ll try replicating those cheese muffins with some ham inside and pair it with a cauliflower soup.
Now, right now I’m doing the Weight Watchers thing – I’ve lost eleven pounds so far; yay! – so I think I’ll figure out a low-cal version of both.
Yum!
That sounds really good, Jean. I’d never thought about having savory muffins, but they sound intriguing.