Hello. It's been so long that I almost feel like I should reintroduce myself. In some ways this would be appropriate as I'm not the same person as I was 10 months ago (! oh wow, I've been gone for a while). In that time I wrote and submitted my thesis. That's still a surreal sentence to write even two months after submission. It's not a good excuse, but while writing I couldn't really bring myself to write anything else, thus the lack of blog posts.
Since submission I've moved to the west coast and settled myself into a post-doc here in Seattle (there'll be more about this new city in future posts, I promise). Moving somewhere new is full of excitement and new possibilities. I've discovered new favorite restaurants and I'm thoroughly enjoying the different climate. And there are mountains here! Note the view from my balcony below. Although, new locations, whether when you've moved or are simply traveling, are missing something integral to happiness. I find that I miss 'home' comforts and my favorite people and places. I know that I'm just in the induction period of living somewhere new and in six months I'll feel quite at home here, but in the interim I like to surround myself with familiarity. This is why I think I gravitated towards making my mom's famous bran muffin's last night.
I say they're famous because there is always a chocolate chip bran muffin to be had at my parents house and many people often request or comment on them. They are her specialty. According to my recipe book I have had this recipe for seven years now and in that time I've made these muffins on several occasions. Secretly (or maybe not so much) I've thought each time that my mom left out an ingredient when she shared the recipe; I had never been able to duplicate them the way she makes them. Mine are always too dense, too dry or too small. This time I figured I would use her recipe as a base and modify at will since they weren't going to turn out the same anyway. Maybe it's because I really wanted something familiar, but somehow in changing several of the ingredients I ended up with a muffin that was closer to my mom's than I had ever made. This made me happy :-). I'll share my modified recipe with you, though maybe you'll inexplicably channel a favorite muffin recipe and end up with something completely different than what I made.
Chocolate Chip Bran Flax Muffins
adapted from Irene's muffin recipe
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 1/4 cups white flour
- 1/2 cup bran
- 1/2 cup ground flax
- 5 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips (this is just enough that you can still justify having these muffins for breakfast without feeling guilty)
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup apple sauce
- 1/2 cup apple juice
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
Preheat the oven to 400 ˚C. Mix dry and wet ingredients separately and then combine. Add to muffin tins (either in muffin papers or in tins sprayed with oil). Cook for 14-18 min; the time depends on your oven, take them out when a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and enjoy!
