Sunday Morning Baking: Muffins

On Sunday mornings, I am thinking leisure, the New York Times, a cup of strong coffee liberally doused with cream, and conversation...

Well, that was in the last century.  Now I doubt anyone is pushing the Sunday edition of the NY Times into an airplane bay to fly it into the Midwest (Madison or Chicago) before the leisurely Sunday morning coffee drinkers are looking to grind their own roasts and make coffee in some "high-tech" Krups coffee maker. (Is the Krups company still around?  Does anyone grind their own beans?)

Muffins are still with us.  Fortunately.  Although now they have grown in proportion to any of the other super-sized fries (with that) or Big Gulps.

I have been taking to making a tray (of regular sized!) on Sundays every couple weeks and freezing them.  Most of the time they are a bit healthier than this morning's concoction, but all muffin make a better snack than grabbing a burger or a fry.

This Sunday's muffin: Walnut, Oatmeal, and White Chocolate Morsels

Bake at 375 degrees for  about 14+ minutes (Stick a toothpick in to check for done-ness!)

First if you are like me cut 4 Tablespoon of butter off the stick of butter kept in the fridge and set it on the counter.  Preheat your oven.

Next, in a bowl mix the following dry ingredients:

2 cups flour
2/3 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup sugar
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Then, sliver up the (4 TBLSP) butter as you add it.  Mix with a fork cutting the butter in to pea-sized pieces as you go.

Next add:

1/2 cup white morsels
1/2 cup walnut pieces

Stir.

Then add:

1 cup 2% milk
2 eggs (Please do not crack you eggs on the side of your bowl, okay?)

Stir, mixing until all ingredients are moist.  Do not over mix.

At this point I spray my muffin tin with one of those non-stick sprays.  I used to grease them using olive oil, shortening, butter, whatever, but I get the best results, even better than with paper liners, just spraying.  Doing this part after the muffin mix is ready to go gives the baking powder and salt a couple minutes to start their reaction.

Spoon the mix into the tin.  Optional, is a pinch of brown sugar across the top of each muffin.

I eat one (or two), and then wrap the rest individually in plastic wrap and freeze.  It is easy to reheat them for about 35 seconds in a 1000 watt microwave and have a warm muffin anytime.  They are also easy to throw into a backpack for a snack later in the day.

This recipe is easy to use and to substitute 1 cup or so of blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, or other items for the walnuts and white morsels.  You could also substitute 3/4 cup brown sugar for the 1/2 cup of regular sugar if you prefer the taste.  Making it from scratch takes almost as long as reading the bowl of a prepared box mix after you have made them a time or two and doesn't have all those unreadable preservatives.