Muffin-shaped scones

I've never had much of a knack with savoury muffins. Sweet ones: no problem, but as soon as I try my hand at savoury, they come out lumpy and hard. Still, I wasn't going to let that get in the way of attempting savoury cheese muffins (p32).

The savoury additions to these muffins are cheese, celery and capsicum. You're only supposed to put in one tablespoon each of the celery and capsicum, but that didn't seem like much to me, (especially as I'd gone for a special walk to the supermarket just to get a single $4.99 capsicum) so I added a bit more.


Into the bowl with the cheese, celery and capsicum, I sifted flour, baking powder, cayenne pepper and salt. In a separate bowl I mixed melted butter with milk and beaten egg, before carefully combining the dry ingredients and liquids.

There didn't seem to be enough liquid: the muffin mixture was more like scone dough than anything else. I could have added more milk, but then it'd be overmixed. I decided I'd better leave it the way it was. Dividing the dough into 12 lumps, I filled up my muffin pans, put them in the oven and hoped for the best.


My savoury muffins didn't look that great when I took them out of the oven - kinda lumpy and odd-looking. Mum, Dad and I gamely had a try of them though, and to my surprise, they tasted quite good. The texture was quite heavy - more like a scone than a muffin, but not at all unpleasant. And though the savoury mixture of celery and capsicum may seem overly simple, it was surprisingly tasty. As an added bonus, they were really good dipped in the leftover tomato soup I had for dinner!

I'd make these again, but probably wouldn't bother pretending they were muffins: I'd just shape them into scones, because that's clearly what the dough is best suited for.