Banshee's Bran Muffins

BANSHEE’S BRAN MUFFINS
Or Oatmeal
As always, see notes.

1/3 c sour cream, plus 2/3 c milk to equal 1 c liquid. Have more milk on hand.
1 c bran ‘twigs’ cereal (not flakes), first addition
1/4 c (2 oz) melted butter
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 scant tsp salt
1/2 c (or more) dried fruit, like dates, raisins, etc.

1 c (5 oz) unbleached flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda, sieved (Any lumps do not dissolve in liquid)
1/2 tsp cinnamon or mixed spice
1 c bran ‘twigs’ cereal, second addition.

Preheat oven to 400⁰ and grease well a 12-cup standard size muffin tin.
Mix first 7 ingredients together (including fruit) and stir well to unclump fruit and break up the twigs – they should be completely disintegrated.

Mix the dry ingredients, including 2nd cup of bran. Stir into the liquid mixture and add more liquid (milk or cold coffee) to achieve the muffin texture of slightly thick wet cement. The second addition of bran should remain whole. Portion into the muffin tin and bake for 20-25 minutes until done.

Notes: There’s a lot of wiggle room here. If you don’t have or prefer not to use whole-fat sour cream, you can substitute low-fat, fat-free or just plain yogurt. Or substitute 1 c buttermilk for the lot. At that point, you can increase the butter to 1/3 c or just make them low-fat. Now you’ve dedicated yourself to eating them before they go stale, which they will do fairly quickly. However, this isn’t exactly a hardship.

Original recipe used old-fashioned rolled oats instead of bran, 1 cup buttermilk instead of the milk/sour cream, and soaked the first cup of oats for a full hour or more before proceeding. It used 1/3 cup butter. No spice or fruit was mentioned, but both could be added.

Without the fruit, you get smaller or fewer muffins. This is ok too, but adjust the baking time if the muffins are smaller.

I like dates because the dog can’t have raisins and DH likes to share. I like mixed spice because I do some Irish, Scottish and British baking and we have it around.

Banshee was a rescue cat who’d suffered some serious physical abuse. He developed into a weird, eccentric, sweet creature in a cat suit and I miss him greatly. He only accepted a particular brand of dry cat food and would never eat anything else, so I got into the habit of leaving the baking out to cool.

Then we had a feral kitten, not yet weaned, dropped at our apartment door. Actually, she wasn’t dropped so much as thrust at us with the words “If you don’t take her, we’re putting her outside.” Then they continued their midnight move, leaving the landlord with the bill for several months rent. Also a furniture rental place, since they absconded with the goods. Nice folk.

Pooka got weaned by me and adopted by the Bansh, who allowed her to suckle (he was male) and taught her about things like play and cat box etiquette. However, she listened to nobody else and did her best to run things. Not easy when you weigh well under a pound, but major main character syndrome with sociopathic tendencies helped a lot.

As far as I can tell, one night she convinced Banshee to join her in a raid on bran muffins, cooling on the counter. She couldn’t have jumped up there, but Bansh’s kitten got whatever she wanted. I got up in the morning to every muffin on the floor with at least one bite out of each and two missing entirely. I couldn’t even scold them – it’s the one and only time I’ve ever seen two cats willingly share a litter pan.

Pooka ended up home’d at a rural house; not a farm, but lots of other cats around. I might have kept her, but by that time she’d decided DH had to die. I firmly believe she ended her days organizing the other cats into a union; I suspect her leadership owed more to Jimmy Hoffa than to Cesar Chavez.

And Banshee could never be trusted around baked goods again. He was obsessed.