Six Week Bran Muffins

At Missouri Town last weekend.  He is so funny!

I am always looking for thoughtful ways to make my hubs breakfast in the mornings.  He gets up before I do and by the time I am up and in the shower, he's coming in to say "bye" and "I love you".  He does not like cereal (unlike his 1-gallon-of-milk-on-her-own-per-week wife), and quiche can get old, so I started making him Bran muffins.  I don't even think he knows they are good for him =)
This recipe is called a "6-week Muffin" recipe because you can keep the batter in the refrigerator for up to 6 weeks and bake what you want as you want it.  I'll tell you one thing-this batter doesn't stay in our house that long ever because we love them so much.  My mom used to make these and I rediscovered the recipe thanks to Cheryl (if you don't know who that is by now, you need to read my blog more!), who baked these in her class last week.  The recipe is for the base of the muffin, but I like to add in different ingredients to change the flavor.  My favorite is apple blueberry, which is what I made here, but you could use raisins, chocolate chips (another fav), nuts, or any other add-in.  I bake on Sunday and keep them in the fridge for Daniel all week.  He loves them with a glass of milk!

Ingredients
1/2 cup oil (applesauce also works fantastic!)
1.5 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla (I added this!)
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk (or 2 cups milk + 2 tsp vinegar, let sit 5 minutes, then use.  I never buy buttermilk!)
2.5 cups flour (whole wheat or white)
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon (or more.  We like lots of it, so I just dump it)
1 tsp salt
2.5 tsp baking soda
1/2 box Bran Cereal (I bought Aldi brand for only $1.60/box.  You can also use raisin bran- we don't care for raisins!)

Directions

• Mix oil, sugar, vanilla, and buttermilk together in a large bowl.
• Stir in flour, salt, soda, cinnamon, and bran cereal.
• Let sit in bowl overnight (I baked after just a few hours. Worked fine!)

• Add in your additional ingredients the day you bake.  Otherwise, you might have moldy fruit in the batter.
• Put cupcake liners in the muffin tin.  Fill each paper to be 1/2 or so full.

Filling them this much will make about 30 muffins

• Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  Makes 3 dozen muffins.  Since this keeps so long in the fridge, you can double the recipe all at once and bake all month!