Cheese and Marmite Scones (and cheesecake brownies)

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to be ambivalent about Marmite. That’s how I am – I don’t hate it, I certainly don’t love it.

The official taster, on the other hand, is quite the Marmite fan, evidenced by the three types of Marmite he possesses: regular, Marmite with Guinness (rather grubby looking) and – yes, that’s right – Marmite with champagne. Expensive tastes, that boy.

Marmite: You either love it or you don't mind it.

I went to Limerick this weekend to visit a friend from home who’s just moved over to Ireland and bought an unreasonably cute kitten. Imagining the official taster wasting away to nothing without me to look after him, I decided to whip up a batch of cheese and Marmite scones before I left. (In actual fact the OT loves it when I go away – he gets to play hours of Xbox and eat large amounts of unhealthy food without me judging him.)

I used the same basic recipe as the cheese and mustard mini scones, just replacing the mustard with Marmite and increasing all the amounts slightly to get a bigger batch. I also doubled the amount of baking powder I used to make sure they didn’t turn out too heavy like the wholemeal strawberry scones I made last week.

Cheese and Marmite scones ready to go into the oven - the mess I make while baking visible in the background.

Despite my non-committal attitude to Marmite, I LOVED these scones. The official taster was also positive, saying that they smelled great, that the Marmite was ‘very present’ but tasted good, with the only negative being the fact that after a few chews it became ‘a little sticky’ in the mouth. I know what he meant there – probably the word I’d use is ‘claggy’, but only to a very small degree, and overall I’d say we both judged these scones a success.

Cheese and Marmite scones fresh from the oven - mess now miraculously cleaned up!

Another success for the weekend were the cheesecake brownies I made to take with me to Limerick, using David Lebovitz’s recipe. This was the first time I’d ever made brownies from scratch, and I didn’t quite have all the right equipment, but with a little improvisation the result was crumbly, gooey, messy and delicious. Much to the official taster’s delight, I accidentally left the brownies at home in my rush to make the bus on time.

Oh-so-gooey cheesecake brownies...

And just for fun, the kitty...!