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.