Bran Muffins

Do you remember the movie Stranger than Fiction? It's Will Ferrel as an IRS auditor and his real life is being narrated by an author writing her latest book. One of my all time favorite movie scenes is from that movie. 

Will Farrell is auditng a woman who own a bakery, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. She's a hippie and has arm tattoos (read: I want to be her) and has totally messed up her taxes for years. Will Ferrel, the typical boring, number-obsessed auditor, is assigned to her, while having his life narrated. A fantastic romantic, comedy, drama ensues.

After insulting her during several of their interactions Farrell's brings Maggie Gyllenhaal's character flours. Not flowers. She's a baker and he gifts her fancy types of flour. It's punny, adorable and involves baking. I love it.

I realize that was the worst description of a movie scene ever. Just go watch it.

This bran muffin recipe sort of reminds me of that movie. We've got oat flour, barley flour, flax meal and oat bran. Our intestines are going to love us.

It also makes a massive amount (read 24) muffins which makes it perfect for refrigerating some  of the dough so later on this week you can get up and bake yourself some fresh muffins for breakfast in the morning with minimal effort.

It's also adaptable, you can use shredded carrots or smashed bananas, or blueberries, or raisins as filling. And the flour mixture is pretty flexible as long as you keep the same amount of flours equal. Pretty sure you could bust out with some gluten free oat flour and be in business as well.

A couple other tips: use muffin liners as these are pretty moist and a little oily when they come out so are better for handling with liners. And err on the side of baking a little longer than you think necessary.

Get on it today and make these muffins. You'll be glad you did.

Also real life, I stress ate too many of these while planning my trip to Greece. Booking hotels is hard.

Bran Muffins

Makes 24

Ingredients:

• 1 1/8 cups oat flour
• 1 1/8 cup barley flour
• 1 1/8 cup flax meal
• 1 1/8 cup oat bran
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 1/8 cup oil
• 1 1/8 cup milk
• 1 1/8 cup applesauce
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup fruit - blueberries, raisins, shredded carrots, chopped bananas

To Make

1) Preheat oven to 350*. Combine all flours, baking powder, salt, sugars and cinnamon. 

2) In separate bowl combine all wet ingredients. Stir into flour mixture just until combined. Lastly fold in fruit.

3) Line muffin pan with paper liners. Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan and finish on a rack. Repeat with rest of batter or store leftover batter in the refrigerator. Enjoy!