Jim 'n Nicks... ish Biscuits

Jim 'n Nicks is a southern BBQ staple - we enjoyed their wares while visiting family in Alabama, and what perhaps lives most famously in our memories is the Cheese Biscuit. Yes, so delicious that it earns its own capitalization.


Of course, JnN doesn't publish a recipe, but dedicated fans have been trying recipes to approximate the Cheesy Deliciousness. I tried out one of the recipes, with my own tweaks, and they came out quite tastily. While they could still use some tweaks to achieve full JnN glory, they were a tasty stand-alone muffin... and (as always for my recipes) met the required rubric for being pretty easy.

Somehow, it tastes like there is corn in the muffin even though it's not an ingredient. This is one of the great muffin mysteries of all time, but perhaps a chemistry-pro reader can offer advice here.

Jim 'n Nicks-ish Cheese Muffins:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups flour (the online base recipe recommended self-rising flour, but I refuse to buy new ingredients just for one recipe so I used normal flour and it turned out fine)
• 3/4 cup sugar (the recipe called for 1 cup but that seemed like a lot so I cut if down. If you want to go healthier, cut this further to 1/2cup... or better yet, don't eat these muffins at all).
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (sharp, freshly shredded if possibly. I had non-sharp, pre-shredded in the fridge so I used that. Oh well.)
• 3/4 cup buttermilk (while I usually encourage cheating around weird ingredients, don't cheat on this one - the buttermilk is part of the magic.)
• 2 medium eggs, beaten well (this is flexible - I tried one batch using 1 large egg and one batch using 2 large eggs and they tasted pretty similar, so go with whatever speaks to you.)
• 4 tablespoons butter (the recipe calls for softened butter which you mix in... I preferred using cold butter, cut into small pieces and mixing it into the flour until it was like course crumbs... this makes scones flakier, so I thought it might do the same for muffins... or maybe its just my chemistry superstition?)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a 12-muffin pan (or you can make these as mini-muffins, just cut down baking time a bit).

Take all the dry ingredients mix them together. Mix in butter (either soft butter, or work in cold butter until mix looks crumbly). Add cheddar cheese and stir. Beat eggs with vanilla and buttermilk. Add mixed wet ingredients to dry and mix LIGHTLY, just until mixed. Over-mixing is bad. Very bad.


Bake ~11 mins, or until muffins are golden-ish. Enjoy! These are great as a side with BBQ, burgers, or even breakfast.