Bran Muffins

A breakfast staple for me is bran muffins. They freeze well and are ready to eat after just a minute in the microwave. I make a double batch, and they last for a couple months. This is the standard 6-week bran muffin recipe, but I have made several adjustments over the years to make them more to my liking. The regular recipe calls for buttermilk, but I started using skim milk or mixed dry milk several years ago. I actually like the taste better and it has fewer calories.

Bran Muffins
5 tsp baking soda
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup applesauce
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 TB salt
1 qt milk (I just use reconstituted dry milk)
5 cups flour
2 cups bran flakes
4 cups all bran cereal
2 TB cinnamon
1/2 TB nutmeg

Dissolve soda in boiling water. Cream shortening, sugar and eggs. Combine salt, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add flour mixture and milk alternately into shortening mixture until well blended. Blend in water and soda mixture. Stir in cereals. Let batter sit in fridge overnight to soften cereals. Bake at 375 for 15-17 minutes. Freeze in gallon ziploc bags. Makes 4-5 dozen muffins.Claire the muffin thief:

Bread Mixes

I love good homemade bread. Wonderbread just doesn't cut it. I really enjoy the wheat bread from Great Harvest, but I have a bad tendency to also purchase a loaf of their pumpkin chocolate chip bread when I go there. A few months ago I pulled out my bread machine and started using it faithfully again. Making bread in the bread machine certainly isn't hard, but I was looking for a way to make it even easier after the twins arrived. It can take some time, especially if I need to grind the wheat. In order to streamline this process, I decided to put together my own bread mixes for my machine. It took me about an hour to put together a dozen mixes for our favorite wheat bread. I ground a couple cans of wheat and lined up 12 Ziploc bags, measured the ingredients for each, sealed the bag, and put them in the freezer.

This morning I decided to make bread. All I had to do is pull out my mix and add water and yeast. It took me two minutes compared to the 15 it usually takes to pull everything out and measure it all. Around here 13 minutes is a big deal.

50% Whole Wheat Bread
(from the cookbook for my Panasonic bread machine)

1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 3/4 cups bread flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp wheat gluten (opt)
1 1/2 tsp dough enhancer (opt)
2 TB dry milk
2 tsp salt
2 TB butter
2 TB molasses
1 7/16 cups water

The original recipe doesn't call for the gluten or dough enhancer, but I think they really help.

She really does like the bread. Claire just woke up from a nap and wouldn't smile for me.