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Apple-Bran-Walnut Muffins

This is the tweaked version, and you'll see that there are still options for you to play with.

Course Breakfast
Servings 14 muffins
Debi Simons Debi Simons

Ingredients

Dry Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups 1 1/2 cups oat or wheat bran, ground flaxseed, or whole-grain flaked hot cereal, or same amount of oatmeal ground up in blender until fairly fine
  • 3/4 cup flour—all purpose or whole-wheat Whole wheat is better, of course!
  • 1/3 cup nonfat dry milk This is totally optional—it will add extra protein.
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 tsp . cinnamon
  • 1 tsp . salt
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder

Wet ingredients:

  • 1 medium to large carrot, grated optional, use 1 large apple or 2 small ones below if not using carrot)
  • 1 medium to large apple cored and coarsely shredded—not necessary to peel
  • Zest of 2 oranges totally optional, or use several drops of orange oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup buttermilk or 1 cup water and 1/4 cup buttermilk powder
  • 1/4 cup oil anything but olive oil​​

Instructions

  1. Turn oven on to 400 degrees. Dump the walnuts onto a baking sheet and slide them into the oven to toast slightly while you're doing the rest of the prep. Set the timer for 10 minutes so you don't forget about them. Take them out and let them cool a bit before you chop them.

  2. Combine the dry ingredients, making sure that you get out any lumps in the brown sugar. If you're using the buttermilk powder, put it in here.

  3. Mix or whisk the wet ingredients, including the carrot and apple, together in another bowl, being sure to add the water here if you used the buttermilk powder. (You don't absolutely have to do this separate bowl step, but it's hard to get things mixed evenly if you don't.) As this point you should have your walnuts chopped, so mix those into the dry ingredients. Then pour the wet mixture on top of the dry ingredients and use a spatula to get everything combined. Be sure to get all the dry ingredients mixed in. It's surprisingly hard to do this, so make sure you're going all the way to the bottom of the bowl and scraping up. Stop as soon as you don't see any more streaks of the flour mixture. You'll notice that the batter starts getting bubbly as soon as you combine the two sets of ingredients. That's the baking powder starting to work, and you don't want to deflate things too much, so work with a light hand.
  4. Spray your muffin pans with baking spray or use foil or paper liners. Portion out the batter among the 14 cups. Bake until lightly browned on top and a toothpick comes out clean, 15-20 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes before taking them out and putting on a cooling rack. Good warm or at room temp. Don't forget the butter!