I don't think a blog post ever goes by without me bringing up the fact that prepared food usually doesn't come without some kind of context. Perhaps it stopped being a novel point around, say, my first post about sriracha cauliflower? Even so, it continues to be relevant. As consumers, we don't witness every facet of the provenance of a food source; however, when we take on the mantle of the home cook or baker, that's when we begin to cast the result in the forge of our own circumstance.
Let me introduce to you the (pretty mundane, honestly) story of the Bran & Jam Muffins I bring to you today. We all know wheat bran as something that's pretty ubiquitous in baked goods; maybe this is more of an American phenomenon, but I think it's still commonly found over here in the UK. Despite this, it's kind of awkward to buy. Supermarkets don't commonly stock it (unless I'm incredibly oblivious), and I found the best place to buy it was Holland & Barrett in a 750g bag (find it here or in store). Now, the texture of wheat bran is feathery to the point where it could probably flutter away if a light breeze were to blow on by. The resulting 750g bag was the size of my (medium sized (?)) torso.
The story doesn't end here, people. I bought this hulking yet slight sack o' bran (tragically, it was not a burlap sack) while visiting my parents, with the intention of making bran muffins back at my place; I'd heard that flatmate-of-the-blog Rebecca was a fan o'bran. Predictably, I FORGOT to take them on the train back home with me, so I had to buy another sack back in London. Are you keeping count? This is a cumulative total of 1.5 kg of wheat bran, bi-located by approximately 30 miles. You may now remember that I already have a recipe involving bran; you may now also be understanding why this is.
That's the tale of abundance, now for the probably-less-jovial-but-y'know-it's-honest story of the dearth. Checking my bank account this morning, I found that I had not exactly enough money to get me through the month. Proceeding to the shower, that dispenser of pessimism and gloom, I was mired with thoughts that I would have to put this blog on an indefinite hiatus and that I couldn't possibly continue. Then, I sat down and applied for a couple of jobs. This isn't an activity well-suited to positivity, but it did give me a small hint that this situation may just be temporary. I'm still not totally sure about how to navigate managing a blog and having very little surplus money, but I still have to eat, right? That means I still have to cook.
Equipped with the attitude of adaptation, my mind drifted to the sizable and yet unopened bag of bran sitting in my bedroom (did I forget to mention that I'm staying with my parents for a week?). I could use this to make something. Here, I need to state that I am very lucky to have parents who will go out and say that I can use pretty much whatever they have in the kitchen. As much as I can talk about personally being short on funds and I can't ask them to support me in more substantial ways, it's not as if I'm completely without resources. Many thanks go out to my parents' kitchen here, and I promise to save them at least a couple of muffins.
Another debate I want to thrash out here briefly is the question of what constitutes a breakfast muffin? As this article from Thrillist attests, there exists a vociferous anti-muffin-for-breakfast lobby that is primed and ready to scorn your choices. Sure, it's not the healthiest choice you could make, but they hail from the same fast-breaking canon that pancakes with syrup and bacon arose from. I'm not even going to get started on the (frankly, delicious but unrelated) McMuffin. What I will say, however, with a not-insubstantial heft of indignant zest, is that this muffin can be a breakfast if you want it to be. You could even have a protein shake on the side, if you really have to. I'm daren't sanction that notion with a recipe though.
Bran & Jam Muffins
Preparation time: 25 minutes.
Cooking time: 18-20 minutes.
Makes 6 muffins.
Ingredients
50g of wheat bran
150g of plain flour
80g of softened, unsalted butter
75g of caster sugar
1 egg
250 ml of milk
1/2 tsp of salt
1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1/8 tsp of ground cloves
1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp of jam (of your choosing)
Topping
2 tsp of oats
1/2 tsp of sugar
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Cut the butter into small chunks and add it into a bowl, along with the sugar. Cream the mixture until pale but not yet aerated.
Add in the egg and combine. When this has been mixed together, add in the milk and combine once again. Do be warned that it will look hideous at this stage, but do not be discouraged!
Add in the flour, bran, salt, spices and bicarbonate of soda and stir until combined. Don't over-mix here as this will cause too much air to be introduced to the mixture which may result in a muffin deflation in the cooling stage.
In a small bowl, mix together the oats, sugar and cinnamon for the topping and set aside.
Line a muffin tray with cases and start spooning the mixture into each. To begin with, you want the mixture to go about 1/3 of the way up the case in order to make room for the jam and the rest of the mixture.
For every muffin, nestle 1/2 a tsp of jam in the centre. Take care to ensure that the jam doesn't touch the side of the muffins to prevent leakage.
When every muffin has been allocated a portion of jam, add more of the muffin mixture to each case. You want it to be just enough to sufficiently cover the jam. Sprinkle this with the sugar-cinnamon-oat mixture and then place in the oven for 18-20 minutes.
Cool in the muffin tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. These are best eaten at room temperature so do try to be patient!
Notes & Adjustments
I feel very strongly that I shouldn't be prescriptive about the type of jam you use here so I am leaving it in your (strong and capable) hands. I went for strawberry because it was what we had in the house at the time, but ideally I would have liked to try this with a ginger jam. You could even use a marmalade or (perhaps) a curd.
This is an incredibly non-vegan recipe. However, to make it vegan I would recommend replacing the dairy milk with a non-dairy milk (I think oat would be best, but I will again leave it to you), the egg for half a mashed banana and the butter for a neutral -tasting oil or a vegan butter. Personally, for the last point, I think the "Buttery" plant based spread from Flora is wonderful and would work well, but you'd have to try this yourself!
If you don't particularly like cinnamon then you won't miss it if it's left out. Thinking of a certain FOTB with this tip (u know who u r).
I didn't have it to hand when I made this, but I think light brown instead of caster sugar would be better in this recipe and recommend that you use that.
With regards to the milk, I used one of the shelf-stable semi-skimmed UHT milks for two reasons; it's what we had in the house and I also think it has a (somewhat suspicious yet delicious) creamy taste. I wouldn't advise going out of your way to buy this, but if you have it around then please do use it!
Most muffin recipes are for 9-12 muffins; mine only makes six, however the quantities can simply be multiplied by 2 depending on how many you wish to make.
As a last note, I took my title from the song "A Sorta Fairytale" by the incomparable Tori Amos. Listen to it here.
... the music video is also beautiful (TW: mild body horror) but I hate the way the song was spliced and truncated for the radio mix.
I'll stop now before I start linking you to all of my favourite live performances (this is where you write in the comments about how much you do want me to do that).
Comments