Annals of Eating: Not So Regular Bran Muffins for the Irregular
Bran muffins serve one purpose and one purpose only. So does bran cereal, for that matter. People don't eat bran because it tastes good, people eat it because it makes them poop.In case you haven't been told, pooping is the natural consequence of eating. What goes in must come out, so they say. I am sorry to write about this on my food blog, but it's a topic that needed to be broached. We all poop: deal with it.When I say "we all poop: deal with it" I do not mean to imply that we all poop to the same degree. Some of us poop at a 45 degree angle. Haha, that was poop humor.What I'm trying to say is that some of us poop more frequently than others. Julia Child, for example, poops three times a day. Go Julia!My own personal poop situation falls into the category of "too much information for my gentle blog-reading audience." Suffice it to say that I felt the duty (haha, duty) to make, tonight, Nancy Silverton's recipe for Bran Muffins.Nancy's recipe appealed to me because #1, my diet requires bran at the moment and #2 (haha, #2), she has all these quirky elements like grated orange zest and pulverized raisin mash.Let's get on with it Nancy, do-do that voodoo that you do so well. Hehe, dodo.[If this blog were my job, I'd be fired right around now.]Now then it is late (2:30!) and I have not the time to take you through the entire recipe with ingredients, etc. If you'd like that I suppose I could type it up at some point. But for now, enjoy my pretty pictures.We take 2 cups of unprocessed bran
and toast it for 6 minutes in a 350 degree oven:
Next we take 1.5 cups of raisins and add 1 cup of water to a sauce pan:
Simmer on low heat until water is absorbed:
Then pulverize:
To the toasted bran we've added buttermilk and water, and now we add the raisin mixture and grated orange zest:
Soon we add flour and brown sugar and eggs and egg whites and baking soda and baking powder and--phew!--stir it all up, pour into the muffin tin, and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.Here's the result:
Ok looks a little, lumpy but I tore a top off and it was delicious:
Really, the secret's in the raisin mush: keeps the muffins moist. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the muffins out of the muffin tin without tearing the tops off: so I'll wrap in plastic wrap and call it a night.Let me conclude by apologizing for the "distastefulness" of this post. For those of you that were offended, please know that this post does not represent the fine work that we do here at The Amateur Gourmet. Usually, we are much more classy, much more tactful. And for those of you who were NOT offended by this post, perhaps you might enjoy photographs of the "end result," if you know what I mean? That's available if you click below.EWWW YOU'RE SICK!!! GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU CLICKED THAT.
