The Cookbook Challenge Week 15 - Muffins - Savoury - 2 - $ - V

I'm running a little bit behind on this (last) week's challenge!

I'm running a bit behind on the recipes in general. There has not been a lot of cooking done in my world as of late; I have been very spoiled and taken out for loads of dinners and had a fair few meals cooked for me.
Dry your eyes, I hear you cry! Believe me, I am not complaining, merely explaining.
I decided to do savoury muffins for the challenge. I had a recipe for cheese and semi-dried tomato muffins on my refrigerator door for about 5 years that I never got around to making. The fridge konked out, the recipe got lost, but I've never forgotten the muffins.

I used Dame Stephanie Alexander's base recipe from The Cook's Companion. Her recipe can be modified to make sweet or savoury muffins and you just decide what you want to pop in them. I opted for semi-dried tomatoes, vintage cheddar and chives.
The recipe says it makes 12 muffins but once my mix was done, I decided Dame Stephie must have been into the cooking sherry because the batter looked well-short. Turns out I got 10 muffins, so I guess it depends on the size of your tins and if you add the sugar or not.

Ingredients

220gm self-raising flour
1/2 cup castor sugar (omit if making savoury muffins like mine)
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil (if you are making sweet muffins, increase this to 3/4 cup)
150gm grated cheese
10 semi-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
1tbs fresh chives, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Grease a standard 12-hole muffin tin, or line it with paper muffin pans.
Sift the flour and then add the sugar if making sweet muffins. In this case however, add the cheese and chives to the flour in a large mixing bowl. A nice big grind of cracked pepper and give the dry ingredients a stir.
Combine the milk, egg and oil in a separate bowl, mix well and add the tomatoes. (If you were doing berries or bananas you would add them to this wet mix instead.)
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid. Mix lightly until just combined.
Spoon batter into the muffin tins until to two-thirds full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden on top. Mine took about 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven, leave tray for a minute or two and then turn onto a wire rack to cool. Although, my version are pretty yummy straight from the oven! The sweet from the tomatoes and the salt from the cheese go really well together, and the chives give them an extra lift.
Served cold the muffins are a perfect snack on the go or a jazzy accompaniment to a bowl of soup.
Next time I make them I think I will do mini versions as they would be a great bite-size addition to a selection of finger foods.

Enjoy!