Cheese Muffins with Chilli Jam
These Cheese Muffins with Chilli Jam are really quick and easy to make and combine a delicious, gooey cheesiness with the hot-sweet punch of the jam. I think cheese and chilli is a flavour combination made in heaven! You can use either shop-bought or home-made Chilli Jam for this recipe. If you want to make your own, have a look at my really easy Chilli Jam recipe.
I have always made quite a lot of sweet muffins as they lend themselves to seasonal flavours and adaptations – such as my Blackberry Muffins – but I had not made many savoury muffins until recently. Now I make a lot of plain Cheese Muffins – they are my school lunch box salvation on many occasions – but decided to try and make a more adult version. These Cheese Muffins with Chilli Jam are the result. However, if you are cooking for non-chilli lovers, you can use this recipe to make plain Cheese Muffins – just don’t add the Chilli Jam.
Gotta love a muffin..
Muffins are the perfect introduction to baking for anyone who lacks confidence in their baking skills. The method is really easy (just combine the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients) and also very quick (20 minutes to cook). This means you can pretty much whip up a batch of muffins whenever you are in the mood! This is good as the only issue with home-made muffins is that they must be eaten fresh. In my opinion, the best time to eat a muffin is when it is still warm from the oven. Otherwise, you need to eat them within a day or so as they will get stale pretty quickly.
Lovely Chilli Jam
I love Chilli Jam. It packs a chilli punch, tempered with sweetness, and is fantastic as a condiment as well as an ingredient. I use it a lot in sandwiches (particularly good with cheese and also hummus) but it is also great with roasted sweetcorn or drizzled onto baked potatoes with a dollop of sour cream.
I make my own Chilli Jam and will sometimes use it in these muffins. However, if I do not have any home-made chilli jam, I will use ready-made and this works really well too. I particularly like the Garlic Jame with Chilli produced by the Garlic Farm which has the additional benefit of garlic flavour too. The heat of these muffins will depend on the the strength of the chilli jam so choose one according to your chilli tolerance.
PrintCheese Muffins with Chilli Jam
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 20
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 12 muffins 1x
- Category: Muffins
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: English
Description
These Cheese Muffins with Chilli Jam are really quick and easy to make and combine a delicious, gooey cheesiness with the hot-sweet punch of the jam.
Ingredients
- 275 g self-raising flour
- A pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 250 ml milk
- 100 g melted butter
- 1 large sprig of thyme
- 75 g of strongly flavoured cheese (I generally use cheddar or a mixture of 50g cheddar and 25g gruyere)
- Chilli Jam – (I have a really easy recipe to make Chilli Jam but shop-bought is great too)
Instructions
- Set your oven to 200 C/180F/Gas Mark 6.
- Line a 12-hole muffin tin.
- Put the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl.
- Add the egg, milk and melted butter. Stir to combine.
- Remove the leaves from the sprig of thyme, roughly chop them and add them to the mixture.
- Finely grate the cheese and stir into the mixture.
- Spoon approximately 1 tablespoon of the muffin mixture into each of the lined holes in your muffin tray.
- Make an indentation in each portion of muffin mixture and add a spoonful of chilli jam.
- Put the muffin tray in the oven and bake the muffins for 20 minutes until they are risen and golden.
- Remove the tray from the oven and allow the muffins to cool for five minutes before taking them out of the tin.
Notes
If you don’t have shop-bought liners, you can easily make your own by cutting baking parchment into squares and using a small jar or tin to mould each square into the hole in the tin before adding the mixture.
If you are cooking for non-chilli lovers, you can just leave out the Chilli Jam and then you have a straightforward gooey cheesy muffin.
This recipe has been shared on #CookBlogShare at Recipes Made Easy and #Baking Crumbs at Jo’s Kitchen Larder and Apply to Face Blog and #Fiesta Friday with Fiesta Friday and Antonia @ Zoale.com