This is a variation on my Banana Cheese Muffins. I followed the same recipe, but added garlic in along with the emmentaler cheese, put the batter into the muffin pans, and then pushed chunks of extra sharp cheddar mixed with garlic into the top of each muffin before baking. I used 4 oz of cheddar and 3 large cloves of garlic for 1 muffin recipe.

Last time, I had a little trouble getting the muffins out of the pan. I was a little concerned that the cheddar chunks would sink to the bottom and make the muffins stick even more. So instead of coating the pans with olive oil, I used a butter-canola blend spread, and then I sprinkled old fashioned oats on the bottom and sides.

I didn’t have enough oat flour on hand, so I whirred some oats in the food processor to complete the oat flour. The result was a little coarser than the store-bought flour, and included a few oats, but it worked for this recipe. One cup of oats turns into about 2/3 to 3/4 cup of oat flour, depending on how tight you pack the oats into the cup.

Actually, I doubled the recipe, and for the first dozen muffins, I made them as above. To the rest of the batter, I added a teaspoon of ground Martiniquan hot pepper (if you don’t have access to this, you’ll have to substitute cayenne pepper). I filled another dozen muffins with this variation. I placed a slice of garlic on top of each muffin, to tell them apart from the first batch. (Note: when handling hot pepper, use gloves or wash your hands thoroughly afterwards, several times).

The original recipe really filled a full dozen, and with the addition of the cheddar cheese, this meant I still had batter left over after making two dozen muffins. To the leftover batter, I added a little more hot pepper and a teaspoon of ginger. Having run out of muffin pans, I put this in a small loaf pan, and baked this about 10 minutes longer than the muffins.

Results:

• The muffins and bread were very easy to remove from the pans. The butter and oats did their job.
• The cheese chunks did not sink to the bottom as feared, after all. As a matter of fact, they stayed close to the top. Next time, I should mix them into the batter.
• The cheddar and garlic are a really nice addition to the basic recipe.
• So is the hot pepper, but I overdid it. It’s very tasty of course (I love hot foods!), but it overshadows the garlic and cheddar. A half-teaspoon for one muffin recipe would have been plenty.
• The bread loaf turned out really good. I was expecting it would have a texture similar to the muffins, but actually it was very different. It was super-moist and denser than the muffins. It was very popular with everyone at the crab feast I took it to. Even though it had more hot pepper than the muffin batter,  it didn’t seem as hot, possibly because of the moistness of the bread.

Related articles

• Banana Cheese Muffins (dashingfoodie.com)