Savoury muffins #2: Buttermilk muffins with blue cheese, olives, tiny tomatoes and herbs

Dr Cupcake's adventures with savoury muffins continue! Last time, I searched high and low for a tasty-sounding recipe with little success, and ended up making up my own, which you'll find here. This time I adapted the recipe to fit whatever I had in my fridge - which is basically what I advised last time!

So I'll admit I went hard on the dairy products. I had buttermilk, garlic yoghurt and three different cheeses in these muffins. The 'Greek style' yoghurt in the picture is a really lovely creamy yoghurt and usually, as soon as I buy a tub, I stir it up and pour in a few tablespoons of olive oil, a few teaspoons of minced garlic, a few pinches of salt, some pepper and some fresh herbs. So it becomes a little tub of homemade tzatziki. This version is what was in my muffins.

My recipe is as pictured and is as simple and messy as it looks. There's a basic 1:1:1 on flour, eggs and dairy (yoghurt/buttermilk/milk), plus a few handfuls of whatever flavourings you want...

 ... A few of which are seen here - some creamy blue cheese torn into small squidgy bits (I used some leftover St Agur which is my favorite blue cheese), and chopped black olives...

... Plus the very last of my backyard cherry tomato harvest. They were tiny, and just starting to dry up a little, so this was a good way to use them.

....And back to the garden to fetch some herbs - chives and thyme.

It all looked both messy and a bit exciting when it was all thrown in.

I dolloped it into a muffin tin which I'd buttered beforehand. I had also cut some circles from baking paper to place in the bottom of the pans, so that they would be easier to get out.

After 20 minutes in a moderate oven they came out golden brown and smelling heavenly.

They need a generous spread of butter and can be either cut or torn up to eat. The texture was light and the muffins very savoury - the cheese and olives came through well, and the tiny cherry toms provided little juice bombs which exploded nicely in the mouth - although this wouldn't have worked with 'normal' sized cherry toms, which would be too big - these tiny ones were only the size of a pea.

Happy muffin eating from Dr Cupcake!