Sweet Chilli Cheese Muffins

It's almost midnight, you're already in your pjs and you're craving for Doritos. You go downstairs to your kitchen to look for a snack to satisfy your cheese cravings. You open your pantry. No Doritos in sight, but you see a box of cornmeal. You knew from preparing the club sandwich this afternoon that there is leftover mature cheddar in the fridge. What do you do?

Being the little Masterchef you are, you decide to bake some cheese muffins to munch which could double as breakfast the next morning. Without further ado, you pulled out the Sweet Chilli Cheese Muffin recipe from mum's recipe box.

Sweet Chilli Cheese Muffins

This is not your run of the mill fruit-based muffin. Its orange colour is attributed to the mature cheddar and combination of sweet chilli sauce used in the batter. The muffin is made even more irresistible with crunchy melted cheddar on top. Think cheesy Doritos but in the form of muffins.
 
Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 40 minutes
Utensils needed: large muffin pan or just regular muffin pan and you will get more muffins

Serves 8

Level of difficulty: *

Ingredients 

200g SR flour
1 tsp baking powder, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
70g corn meal
2 large eggs
90g caster sugar
60ml corn oil
40g melted butter
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
80g mature cheddar, grated + 50g sliced into strips
290ml milk

Method

1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

2. In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Fold in oil, melted butter, sweet chilli sauce and honey.

3. Add flour, baking powder, salt and corn meal in a bowl. Fold in dry ingredients into batter and alternate with milk. Pour batter into large muffin liners until 2/3 full. Garnish with cheese strips.

4. Bake in preheated oven at 170C for 40 minutes.

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You could add a little chilli flakes on top to give the muffins a little colour. Just make sure that they are not super spicy chilli flakes.

These muffins are great with a bowl of hot soup. Cornmeal may make the muffins to be a bit tough. If the muffins get too hard, just pop one in the steamer for 5 minutes before serving and it'll be soft and fluffy again.

Happy baking! xx