Strawberry Granola Muffins

It is a HUGE deal if I make breakfast. My husband remembers the date on which the cooking occurred for months to come, and reminds me of this ability I clearly have and never exercise.

It is pretty important to me that we have fresh food with as few preservatives as possible as often as we can (though clearly not as important as letting someone else cook breakfast).

In light of these facts, I decided to bake and freeze muffins.  I found a recipe for basic muffins and jazzed them up with leftover strawberries from this weekend's (successful) jam experiment and some Oats and Honey granola.

Basic Muffins:

1 stick unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup whole milk

2 cups all purpose flour

1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

(this is for 12 regular sized mufffins.  It'll still fit in a normal sized mixing bowl if you double it for 24 muffins, like I can't resist doing.)

 

Mix all the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl, and cream together the butter, sugar and salt.  To the creamed stuff, add eggs, vanilla and milk. Add dry ingredients!  You could bake them now and they'd be delicious, I'm sure, if not plain and mega-boring.

 

I thinly sliced and then quartered about half a dozen pretty large strawberries and tossed them into the batter with about 1 1/2 cups of granola (which is one package of Nature Valley Oat and Honey granola bars crushed to smithereens).  Then I just folded to combine, and baked the muffins for 25 minutes, but start with 20 because my muffin cups were entirely too full.  You just need a toothpick to come out of them clean to consider them done.

 

Oh, way up there at the beginning, I wish I had told you to preheat your oven to 3 50degrees fahrenheit.  Sorry about that.  I hope you're following Standardized Testing Rules and reading the entire passage before you begin! Something from high school you're using in real life! You're welcome.

 

I had nine muffin tin liners.  This recipe makes a dozen muffins.  So, three of my muffins were in oiled cups instead of lined ones. And there are still a dozen perfectly viable muffins, FYI.

 

Now, I don't remember where I read/heard/learned how to freeze muffins in a way that is amazing and perfect every time, but it may have been from a customer at the bakery where I worked (but did not bake).

 

Let your muffins cool all the way and then put them in the freezer JUST AS THEY ARE, IN THE MUFFIN TIN, for two hours.  Once they're frozen solid, you can just put them all in a quart sized zip-top bag (Thanks, Alton Brown, for keeping me from figuring out how to do a copyright symbol!).  If you think they'll last long enough for considerations to be taken, avoid freezer burn by putting that bag into another bag! You don't need to individually wrap them unless you're going to be sending them to work with someone, maybe in a gym bag.  Which I am, so I wrap them in plastic wrap. 

If a microwave is available when you enjoy one, you can zap a frozen muffin for 15 seconds, or a thawed one (if you have the forsight to put one in the fridge the night before) for 5 seconds.

 

I have only tried this with granola and strawberries, but next time I might use orange zest and apple chunks. Or vanilla yogurt and oats. Or granola and bananas. Or blueberries and honey. OR COFFEE AND CINNAMON STREUSEL.  The possibilities are endless! 

 

(Next time I will probably have the foresight to take photos while I'm baking.  The upcoming lentil soup recipe has LOTS of process pictures!)