Although I hear that some people don’t like bacon, to me, it’s a food group all of its own, along with Diet Coke and good coffee. What follows is another delightful recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the third and final in this series for summer hospitality and easy back to school non-sandwich lunches. These cheesy, bacony, and very pretty muffins are fluffy and so eatable. The recipe below produces 12 and costs less than $6 to make.

• 1 tsp oil
• 100g streaky bacon, cut into 1cm pieces
• 1 red onion, finely diced (I used a regular brown one)
• 250g wholemeal self-raising flour (I used plain white flour)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 80g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 200ml buttermilk (replace with yoghurt, sour cream or ordinary milk if need be)
• 1 tbsp finely chopped chives (optional, I like chives so put in 3 tablespoons)
• 150g strong cheddar, grated

1. Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6 and line a muffin tin with 12 paper cases.
2. Warm the oil over a medium heat and fry the bacon in it until just crisp. Lift the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. In the same fat, sauté the onion until just softened, about five minutes, then set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
4. In a jug, whisk the eggs, butter and buttermilk, stir them into the flour mixture with a spatula until just combined, then fold in the cooled bacon, onion, chives, if using, and two-thirds of the cheese until just evenly distributed.
5. Spoon or scoop the mixture into the muffin tins, sprinkle on the rest of the cheese, and bake for about 18 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.