Bacon Egg & Cheese Muffins

In our recent travels through the south we enjoyed some tender and delicious muffins and biscuits which sent me on a research task of how the southern US can do it so well. The answer was usually flour, as we had noted in another post earlier this year. When I look back at the original Three Meals A Day cookbook, our grandmother had also recognized that normal all purpose flour would not make the most tender biscuits. In her recipes she specified pastry flour, which has lower gluten and is typically made with a mixture of soft and hard wheat.

We decided that we would do some trials in February with different flours, biscuit recipes and corn muffin recipes. We ordered some White Lilly flours, Southern Biscuit flours and biscuit mix, and would test those against pastry flour, cake flours and AP flours in the pantry. Granted these white flours are not helping my goal to incorporate whole grains but our travels to the South pushed me on this quest or at least that is my excuse. Of course this experiment did not come without cost as we had to have these flours shipped because we could not find it locally. I’ll just call it special occasion flour.

These muffins were our first test of the famous White Lilly flour (self-rising) in the form of a muffin. The recipe was adapted from their website and we found these to be very simple to make. The exterior of the muffin had a thin layer of crunch that was softer than similar style muffins we have made. The inside had a beautiful light texture and the lower gluten was observed when eating them. The bacon, egg, and cheese were present but not overwhelming blending in well with the muffin flavor and textures.

Recipe

Non-stick Cooking Spray
2 cups White Lily® Self-Rising Flour (see notes)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
3/4 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 large egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup Crisco® Pure Vegetable Oil
2 large hard boiled eggs, diced
4 slices cooked bacon, drained and crumbled

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly coat 12 muffin cups with no-stick cooking spray (if your muffin tin is non-stick you could skip this). Cook to hard boiled eggs. Allow to cool and then dice.

Mix the flour, sugar, dry mustard, cayenne pepper and thyme in medium bowl. Stir in the grated cheese. Make a well in the center. Whisk together the egg, milk and oil in small bowl. Add all at once to flour mixture, stirring just until moistened

Pour the mixture in the prepared muffin cups 1/3 full using about half of the batter. Combine diced hard boiled egg and cooked crumbled bacon. Divide evenly into muffin cups on top of batter. Top evenly with the remaining batter. Muffin cups should be about 2/3 full.
Bake them 20 to 23 minutes or until muffins are lightly browned. Serve hot.

(Notes: If you are substitute regular AP flour in this recipe you will need to add a leavening agent. If you can’t get White Lilly flour, combine half AP flour and half cake flour to get you closer to the right gluten levels or use pastry flour like our grandmother/mother did.)

Modified from White Lilly Recipe