Bacon Cheddar Breakfast Muffins @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I try not to eat bacon or other pork products because my understanding is that pigs are almost as smart as humans, and they are not often raised humanely. Although they are very delicious, sigh…

In this case, I broke my own rule because I needed to make bacon cheddar muffins for A Poisonous Palate. This happens because Hayley Snow’s good friend down the dock on Houseboat Row has a new infant as well as a toddler. Hayley makes them for her, so I had to make them for Hayley. I’ll show you what I mean:

A text arrived on my phone from my dear friend down the

dock, Connie, directed both to my next-door neighbor, Miss

Gloria, and me. 

The new baby is up wailing, toddler Claire is

hysterical, and I desperately need caffeine. Not to be too needy

but I could murder some breakfast.

An SOS if I’d ever heard one. Be right there, I texted back, and Miss Gloria added her thumbs up. I packed up the breakfast muffins chockablock with crispy bacon and sharp cheddar that I’d baked yesterday, poured coffee into an insulated carafe, and started down the finger toward her boat. Evinrude, my gray tiger cat, and Ziggy, Nathan’s little dog, trotted along in my wake. Connie had taken me and my cat in several years ago when we had been kicked to the curb by a bad boyfriend choice. She had also been my college roommate. My mom and I had seen her through the dark days after her mother died of cancer. Now she had an infant and a needy toddler—a stressful even if temporary transition of a different kind. When she cried uncle, I went running. And vice versa.

Ingredients for Connie's muffins

Preheat the oven to 400, and prepare a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

2 cups all purpose flour (I substituted half a cup of cornmeal for a half cup of flour, but it made the texture a little heavy. You decide!)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon course salt

1 cup grated cheddar

2 large eggs

One cup milk

6 tablespoons melted butter, cooled 

8 ounces bacon, cooked and crumbled

Stir together the dry ingredients in one bowl and then stir in the cheddar and the bacon.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and cooled butter. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. Scoop the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 18-22 minutes. Check to find that point where they are cooked through but not dry.

A POISONOUS PALATE is in bookstores right now!

Have you grabbed your copy of LUCY BURDETTE'S KITCHEN: Recipes and Stories from the Key West Food Critic Mysteries?