Mini Cheese Muffins (Quick & Easy Recipe)

You know those little mini breakfast muffins you get in hotels, the ones that make the kids think sweet muffins should be the staple of every breakfast? Well these mini cheese muffins are our Cleaned up version of those, perfect for breakfast, lunchboxes or another time. These moorish little cheesy bites of deliciousness have all the yum and none of the sugar crash!

Mini Cheese Muffins

If you need something cheesy to give to littler kids as snacks, breakfasts or afternoon snacks, these mini cheese muffins are the perfect thing! In our family my kids will eat anything cheesy so when they discovered for the first time years ago that hotels around the world like to serve mini muffins for breakfast, cheese was the obvious ingredient to make some of our own mini breakfast muffins, minus all the sugar.

My kids aren't so little anymore and so they tend to help themselves to handfuls of these mini cheese bites rather than just the one but the recipe remains the same no matter the size of the muffin you're making, just adjust the cooking time if you want to make bigger muffins. You might also want to double the recipe if you're doing this.

The mini muffin tray I use is a silicone one and while they still need greasing they really do make releasing the muffins easily a breeze as yu can just pop the muffins out by pushing them on the bottom.

What's In These Muffins

This recipe is, I promise, super simple. While I don't tend to make these on the day we want to eat them unless it's a weekend, that's only really due to the 10 minutes or so they take to cook. They take just minutes to put together. Like two. Maybe less :)

I use a really strong cheddar in these muffins as I want the cheesy flavor to be the star of the show. I also add a few leftover strands of grated cheese on the top of each muffin before they go into then oven for extra crispiness when you take a bite.

The flour I use depends on what I have at the time I'm making them. They're pretty forgiving in the flour department, so use whatever you have. With the exception of whole grain which I can occasionally find in it's self-rising form, the flours I use for baking generally don't come as self-rising and so you need to add a little bit of baking powder to give the muffins some rise.

Make Ahead

These are great to make ahead and if you prefer them warm you can simply pop them in the oven for a few minutes to reheat, or even give them 30 seconds in the microwave to take the chill off them.

If your kids like to help you bake you could get them onto a batch of these at the weekends and eat them warm from the oven after they've cooled for 10 minutes or so.

Storing These Muffins

After these have cooked and cooled you can keep them for 3 days in an airtight container in the fridge. They're as good cold as they are hot so eat them as you like. I often put one of these in the kids lunchboxes straight from the fridge and by morning break it's been bought up to room temperature. This also helps to keep the box cool all morning. Handy!

You can also freeze these muffin. I'd put them flat in a ZipLoc bag and then freeze them, making sure there's nothing on top of them until they're fully frozen. To defrost these leave them out in the fridge overnight until fully defrosted. You can the microwave them for 30 seconds to take the chill off if you like.

These mini cheese muffins can stay in the freezer for up to a month.

Add Ins

While this is a basic cheese mini muffin you can add extra ingredients to it to squeeze some more goodness in if you like. Here's some ideas:

• Bacon pieces - chop one rasher of bacon really small and fry it off before adding the muffin batter
• Fresh tomato - chop a fresh tomato really small and add the the muffin mix
• Chives - Chives give you a fresh flavor and add some lovely bright color to these
• Onion - Finely slice one medium onion and fry it in a little olive oil until it's soft and caramelised and then add it to the batter

More Savory Muffins

• Spinach muffins
• Deli style cheese and spinach muffins
• Breakfast egg muffins
• Savoury vegetable muffins
• Savoury tuna muffins
• Zucchini carrot muffins

How To Make Mini Cheese Muffins

Ingredients

• ½ Cup Flour I used spelt flour on this recipe. You could also use regular wholemeal, Buckwheat or Einkorn
• ½ Cup Cheddar cheese Grated
• 3 tbsp Butter Melted
• 2 tbsp Milk Dairy, Oat, Almond
• 1 Small Egg Whisked
• ½ tsp Baking powder
• ¼ tsp Salt

Instructions

• Heat your oven up to 200° and grease a 12 hole mini muffin pan with either some melted butter or olive oil so you can release the muffins easily
• In a large mixing bowl add the flour baking powder, salt and then the cheddar cheese and combine gently
• Add the egg, butter and milk and combine until just mixed. Don't over mix the cheesy muffin batter
• Divide the mixture between the muffins holes keeping each one only half full so you give the muffins plenty of room to rise. Add a few leftover stands of cheddar to each muffin
• Bake for 8-10 minutes, keeping an eye on them as they cook. Take them out when they're golden brown on top
• Cool on a wire cooling rack for 10 minutes and then serve

Mini Cheese Muffins Recipe