Oat muffins redux

Earlier in this blog is a post about my mother's Oat Bran Muffin recipe, which I love because it's delicious, nutritious, and easy. It's super-healthy but you'd never know it unless you looked at what is (and isn't) in there.

Since then I've changed the way I make them--same great recipe, slightly different method and outcome. I like the new result--fewer muffins, but each one a little heartier in texture and size, but still with a lightly moist, fine crumb.

I used to refine the oat bran in my food processor, since the recipe was formulated for Quaker Oat bran, whose flakes are lighter than the variety I scoop up from the WinCo bulk bins. This results in a small, finely textured muffin with a lightly rounded top. Then, I'd just add the remaining ingredients to the oat bran and let the food processor's blades mix the whole thing up. So easy.

Then I read that processing eliminates too much of the air bubbles that form in the batter, and that even a recipe like this with no glutenous ingredients like wheat flour (where overmixing will result in a tough, rather than crumbly, muffin) still wants to be minimally mixed. So I processed the bran to refine it, and did my mixing with a spoon in a bowl.

Then one day I didn't feel like hauling big equipment out of the pantry. I wanted to use the WinCo oat bran in its rustic state, but thicker bran flakes soak up less liquid, and the end result would be a flatter, gooier muffin. So, after putting everything together, I let the mixture sit for 30 minutes, giving it a chance to thicken itself up. As I scooped the hearty batter into the muffin pan it stayed mounded and I could put more in each well (without flour, these muffins raise only a little, but the result is as tender and finely-crumbed as regular recipes). I'm a hungry girl. I like bigger muffins!

One ingredient change was from honey to agave syrup. Honey is hard to mix well because the cooler liquids harden it.

So here's my favorite oat muffin recipe again, with my slightly different process.

2 cups oat bran
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup orange or grapefruit juice
1/4 cup agave syrup or honey
2 tbl oil
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe banana

Add-ins: chopped nuts, blueberries, dried fruit, etc.

Heat oven to 365f. Spray the wells of a metal or silicone muffin pan. Mix dry ingredients together and set aside. In your pyrex measuring container, pour grapefruit juice to 1/2 cup line, then pour in agave syrup to the 3/4 cup line. Then add mashed banana to the 1 3/4 cup line (this is way easier, more accurate than measuring each one in a separate measuring cup).

Transfer to another bowl, add the oil and eggs, and mix together. If your pyrex container is 4 cups or more, just add the oil and the eggs right there, plunge in your immersion blender, and mix the whole thing up.

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix with a spoon or spatula only until all is incorporated. Add any extras (my favorites: chopped dried cranberries, chopped pecans, mini chocolate chips) and gently mix.

Time for a catnap or another episode of GLOW.

After 30 minutes or so, come back and scoop batter into the muffin pan, letting it mound above the surface.



Bake for 25-30 minutes until nicely golden. Let cool in pan. Run a knife or thin spatula around edges and turn out on a rack. Muffins keep well in fridge for several days--just warm them in the microwave for 30 seconds or so.

The next morning--muffins with a little skyr and strawberry preserves, coffee and the morning paper on the patio.

The delicious fruits of (amazingly little) labor

"Hi Honey, what kind of jam have you made lately?" My mom knows this is a sure-fire way to guarantee a couple of fresh jars coming her way next time I drive out for a visit. She's a good cook, makes all sorts of delicious dishes--but never jam. She spent too many summer days wrestling with flats of the discount produce my grandfather brought home, that had to be processed immediately or spoil by sundown. The steaming hot kitchen, sticky tabletop, boiling vats of water for sterilizing empty jars and processing filled ones. She catches sight of a metal screw top ring and shudders from the flashbacks.

Ahhh, I love the modern age. To be honest, besides jam my canning experience is limited to the spaghetti sauce I made from bushels of Roma tomatoes gleaned from the margins of a Del Monte field outside Sacramento one summer. It was a lot of fun, but unless I get my hands on that many free tomatoes again it's a one-off experience.

Jam, on the other hand. Anytime, any season--there's always going to be something I can whip up into a jar of happiness with very little time, effort, or mess. Not a single drop of sweat unless I decide to dance a little cumbia while the jam thickens.

Today's batch is my latest favorite, plum grapefruit. A combination born of intemperance--I'd eaten too many of the plums to have enough for a full batch, so I grabbed a couple of grapefruit and made up the difference. What I ended up with is lightly sweet and just enough tart, fragrant with plums and citrus zest and (in my latest version) intensified with a touch of cardamom.

First steps, plus a little information:

Sanitize nine 8-oz jars and screw rings. I simply add them to a load in the dishwasher and press the "hi-temp wash" button. Place nine new lids in a small saucepan, cover with water, and set on low heat. The lids must be new, or the jars won't seal properly. New jars come with screw rings and lids. If you're using old jars without screw rings, buy a box of new rings/lids. If you have rings, you can get a box of just lids. Target, Wal-Mart, and most supermarkets carry all these supplies, plus pectin, wide-mouth funnels, etc.

Also, you need a clear or translucent container. I use a large pyrex 8-cup measuring bowl. You can fill a glass bowl or plastic container with 6 1/2 cups of water, mark the line with a piece of scotch tape, and then go water your plants or use the water to boil spaghetti.

Set your sanitized jars next to the stove, ready to fill with jam. Turn the heat up under the saucepan containing the lids.

Plum Grapefruit Jam

6 generous-sized plums
2-3 grapefruit
4 1/2 cups sugar
1 box low-fruit pectin
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Freshly ground black pepper

Cut the plums into large chunks, removing pits, and place in measuring bowl along with 1/2 cup water. Zest the grapefruit into the bowl, pare all the pith off the grapefruit, take out any seeds, and press chunks of grapefruit into the bowl until the juice fills up all the spaces between the plum chunks. Keep adding and pressing down grapefruit until the juice comes up to the 6 1/2 cup line.

Put the fruit mixture into a large pot over medium heat. Cook at medium-low for about 5 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender (if you don't have one, buy one because it will make your life easier so often you won't believe you survived without it OR puree the hot mixture in 2-3 batches in your regular blender).

Measure 4 1/2 cups sugar into a bowl. Remove 1/4 cup of that sugar and place in a small bowl, then mix in the box of powdered pectin, the cardamom, and a few turns of black pepper (these spices aren't required, but the fruit tastes SO MUCH MORE with them).

Add the sugar/pectin mixture into the fruit in the large saucepan and, stirring continually, bring to a rolling boil (one that doesn't stop bubbling no matter how much you stir) over high heat. Add the remaining sugar all at once, and bring again to a rolling boil. Boil for EXACTLY ONE MINUTE. Remove from heat. Turn heat off under saucepan containing lids.

Place the funnel in a jar and ladle hot jam into it, leaving 1/4" gap at top (I remove the funnel before I add that last little bit so I can eyeball the 1/4" gap). Wipe any drips off the rim, remove a lid from the saucepan using tongs, place on top of the jar, and screw a ring on. Pick up the jar with a towel to protect your fingers from the heat while you tighten the ring. Place the jar upside down on a towel spread out on the counter. Repeat this for the rest of the jam. Work quickly because you want the jam to be very hot as it goes into the jar, since its heat is what will seal the lid onto the rim and, as it cools, create a vacuum. Because it's just fruit and sugar, this lid-sealing/vacuum-creating process is all you need (unlike other forms of canning which require immersion processing).

Let the jars rest upside down for at least five minutes. Depending on your personality, this is a good time to:

A) Wash the bowl and pot and wipe down the counters
B) Relax with a cocktail because you just spent a whole half hour making jam!




Turn the jars right-side up, and as they continue to cool listen for that telltale "pop" as the cooling airspace inside creates a vacuum. You can also simply press the cooled lids with your finger--if they don't pop back at you, the vacuum seal is created. These jars of jam will keep at least six months on the shelf. If you still have any left (how could you? when every friend is going to want their own jar or two) pop it in the fridge, where it will keep for another year (in theory. No jam has ever gone uneaten that long).

Make yourself some jam and almond butter toast with the leavings you scraped out of the pot before you washed it. Mix yourself another cocktail.