I got this recipe from my mom maybe five years ago and I only got around to making it now. Shameful really, because these muffins are SUPER QUICK & EASY and oh so yummy. My mom got the recipe from her mother-in-law, my much loved Ouma Vee. Ouma Vee was a short and very huggable person – think marshmallow huggable. I remember afternoons with her and my sister on her stoep, with her always reading to us. I was very young when she died, so I might be remembering wrong but it in my head she is associated with books. Whereas Ant Bettie, who had a big box full of toys that we were allowed to play with, will always be associated with a Meccano set. Strange how that works huh? Smells tend to do that too. But regardless, back to the story of the muffins.
My grandfather was an ouderling when the new dominee, Dominee Weideman, moved to Cradock. In those days it was customary for the whole gemeente to wait just outside of town on the Friday afternoon and meet the dominee on the road. Thus the dominee and his whole family was accompanied by a motorcade of locals as they arrived in town. My grandparents were the hosts at the pastorie the Saturday to help with introductions and so forth. Ouma Vee made a big batch of muffin batter and as cars pulled up to the house she would pop a pan of muffins into the oven. By the time the introductions were made and coffee and tea offered, the muffins were ready for the obligatory koek en tee session. Such is the magic of these muffins, no fuss, no mess and I am pretty sure impossible to screw up.
Ouma Vee se Kaas Skons
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 0.5 tsp salt
- 1 tsp mustard powder
- 1 cup grated cheese (mature cheddar works best)
- 1 egg
- ±1 cup milk
- Whisk the egg and add milk to it until you have 250ml of liquid.
- Sift all the dry ingredients together.
- Mix it all together. (I told you this was easy…)
- Ladle into a muffin pan. I have a suspicion that these might be even better if you make them in those tiny little muffin pans – the bite size ones – muffin pops anyone?
- Bake at 200° C for approximately 10 minutes. Do the knife test and take them out of the oven if the knife comes out clean.
- Serve immediately with butter, MORE cheese (/!) and apricot jam.
Sit back and enjoy the cheesy goodness.
I added some freshly ground herb mix to the dry ingredients, which was a mistake as the mixture had salt in it as well, so the muffins turned out a little bit too salty. However I am in love with Robertsons Freshly Ground Country Herb Blend Grinder and it contains no salt so in future I will be sure to rather use that.