Fun Food: 6-Week Bran Muffins!

 Recently at our Handwork Chat group meeting a dear friend and fellow knitter reminded me about the 6-Week Bran Muffin recipe.  Many years ago Dear One had a colleague at school who made them and encouraged us to make them too.  You make the batter. Put it in the refrigerator, covered, overnight then the next day you take out what you want, put it in muffin tins and cook delicious muffins.  The batter stays good in the refrigerator for six weeks. If it is not all used up by then...!

This is the recipe I used:

6-Week Bran Muffins

1 box Raisin and Nut Bran Flakes with two meals-worth of cereal removed and eaten by "someone"
5 Cups all-purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 cup cooking oil
5 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups buttermilk

This is how I made the batter:

In a large (13-quart) stainless steel bowl (which my parents gave us for a wedding gift almost 51 years ago) I combined the sugar and eggs until creamy.  Next I poured in the buttermilk and cooking oil and stirred well.  Finally I dumped in the box of cereal, the flour, the baking soda, and the salt and stirred until everything was well combined.  After moving the batter into a smaller glass bowl and covering it with plastic wrap I put it into the refrigerator on a space I had specifically emptied for the large bowl.

The next morning things were very chaotic at our house and I totally forgot I was looking forward to making a few muffins for breakfast.  Neither one of us even got breakfast.  Around 3:00 I arrived home, saw Dear One sitting on the couch, and after a bit of a round-up chat about how the day had gone I remembered the muffin batter and leaped up from my rocking chair---well, leaped might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I did get up, and went to the refrigerator and pulled out the bowl of batter.

At that moment I remembered I had put a container of very dry whole dates soaking in water the night before so I got a knife and separated the dates from their seeds then chopped the heck out of those babies...then added them to the batter with the last of the raisins in the bottom of the cannister...perhaps one-half cup raisins.

Since I was only going to cook six muffins, I decided to do it in the air fryer.  Google told me to cook at 320 degrees in the air fryer for 11-15 minutes.  Well that was not long enough at all so I gave them another 10 minutes.  They were some good!!!

The actual recipe I found online said to cook in the oven 20 minutes at 400 degrees F.  I may try that the next time...just to see the difference.  But maybe not tomorrow since I ate two of them myself and that is too much sweet.  In some ways I think they are more like cupcakes than muffins.  I asked Dear One what he thought.  He said, "Good!"  That is not something I hear very often!  Well,  I really don't make very good food...just good for you food.  At least sometimes.