love muffin

The teenagers I work with like to make fun of me for not having a boyfriend. If they only knew that I spend this particular Friday night staying in and baking muffins… yikes! In my defense, those teens (and kids, and adults, and everyone) are the same people who made me so ZONKED OUT!

Back to the muffins:

Apple-Raisin Bran Muffins!

an adaptation from the recipe on the Raisin Bran box

The cereal and wet stuff:

2 cups raisin bran

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons orange juice (mine was fresh squeezed- my recipe calls for orange zest later, so I zested then squeezed)

Combine these, then let them sit while you do everything else.

The dry:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Combine.

The fruit products:

1/2 cup applesauce (nasty presweetened cause it’s what my mother buys… whatev)

chopped up apple (this is about 3/4 of a HUGE one that needed using… 1 regular sized apple is the equivalent)

1/4 tsp. orange zest

Add to the cereal/milk mixture:

- your applesauce, apple, and orange zest

- 1 egg, slightly beaten

- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

- 1/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar (may want to increase slightly if using unsweetened applesauce)

Then add to the dry and stir until just combined.

It’ll be lumpy!

Scoop into greased muffin tins, 3/4 or so of the way full.

Into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes or until browned to your. Wait as the good smells of baked good permeate your home :D

Tada!

Crumby and scrummy!

   

Interior shot:

Because of my recipe tweaking, I had leftover batter. Rather than waiting to let the muffins cool in the pan, take them out of the pan, refill the pan and bake for another twenty minutes, I made muffin cookies, just on a cookie sheet with cooking spray-ed foil. Into the oven, started checking after 10 minutes but it ended up being like 15:

Thank goodness I am so lazy, because they were DELICIOUS!

They BROWNED UP ON BOTTOM and became SWEET AND COOKIE-Y!

The entire recipe, using 1% milk just cause of what we had, but skim would be fine, is about 1771 calories. Therefore, if you make 14 muffins like me, each is approximately 127 calories. If you make 12 giant ones, each is about 148.

My adorable friend Farhana and I, in high school, decided that baked goods like “muffin” and “cupcake” were overused as terms of endearment and branched out to calling each other “pancake” and “pie.” Anyone else have any good creative pet names?