Sweet Cheddar Cheese Mini Muffins for SRC

WOW, has it been a  month since the last Secret Recipe Club reveal already?   I don't know about you, but the time had flown by for me.     And here it is, Reveal day for Group B already?

Good thing I'm ready.

My assigned blog this month is Betcha Can't Eat Just One and boy did I get a nice surprise.   Katie is from my old stomping grounds.  I grew up on Vancouver Island, just a little bit south and east of her though.   And I'm also a few years older, but I'm not saying by how much.    I had fun looking through her recipes though.    Most of it was sweet stuff, and I don't make a lot of desserts or sweet stuff, really I don't.  It has to be a special occasion, and then I probably, well usually, go to my Danish roots and make something.

 I get together with a bunch of ladies on Friday Nights and thought they might like to try something a little different.  And since I had Katie's blog to make a recipe from, I made some Sweet Cheddar Cheese Muffins.    I also made them mini's, mainly because I just wanted to, and I thought it might just work out that way.    I also paid attention to what she said about how sweet these were and I cut the sugar in half, which worked out well. And I'm having fun with this recipe, stay tuned tomorrow for a little twist I did on them as well.

 I do want to try her Focaccia Bread recipe soon as well as the Naan recipe, cause I have to stop driving 60 miles to the nearest Indian restaurant so I can satisfy my craving for Naan.   I want to learn to make it for myself.

The recipe says you get 12 muffins from this, and I got 24 + mini muffins.   There was just a little leftover batter so I bunged it into a tart pan and baked it.     The following is her recipe with my changes in blue to the side.

Sweet Cheddar Cheese Muffins

• 1 cup granulated sugar (I used 1/2 cup sugar)
  1/4 cup melted butter
  1/4 cup vegetable oil
  2 eggs
  2.5 cups all purpose flour (plus 2 tbsp for the cheese)
  1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  1/4 tsp baking soda
  1/2 tsp salt
  pinch of nutmeg
  1/2 cup buttermilk
  1/4 cup sour cream    (my sour cream was a little, um, lost, so I used plain Greek Yoghurt)
  1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated plus more for topping the muffins  (I used 1 1/2 cups grated Colby Jack Cheese, because I had some already grated in the fridge.)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and have the oven rack on the highest section of the oven.
Line 12 muffin wells with parchment liners or grease the muffin tins with shortening.  ( I used my two mini tart pans and had more than enough batter for 24 muffins)
In a large bowl, beat the sugar with the oils until well combined.
Add the eggs one a time, beating well after each addition until smooth.
Sift together the flour with the baking powder, soda, salt and nutmeg.
Stir the flour mixture into the butter/sugar/eggs until just combined.
Be sure to scrape the bottom and edges of the bowl with a spatula to be sure everything has been mixed in!
Stir in the buttermilk and sour cream until the batter is just combined,  Don’t over mix the muffins!
Toss the grated cheese with the remaining 2 tbsp of flour so it doesn’t all clump together when you add it to the batter.

Stir in the cheese and then scoop batter into prepared muffin tins.

Top with grated cheddar.

Place the oven rack in the highest portion of the oven to get a nice high muffin top.
Bake for 15 minutes before reducing the oven down to 350 and continue to bake for another 10-12 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and the edges are turning a light golden brown.
Let muffins cool slightly in pans before removing to cool completely.

* I have to say, by following all the steps, I overmixed the batter.   The next time I made these, I added the cheese to the dry flour mixture and added the buttermilk and yoghurt to the eggs and proceeded to mix according to the way I was taught to make a muffin, by pouring the liquid into the dry and barely mixing them, they rose better and were more muffin like).

That being said, they were really good, even if I over-mixed the batter a little.   I took them with me to my usual Friday Night gathering and they were well received.     We had a kind of Halloweeny, orange theme going there.