Healthy Blueberry Bran Muffins

Two years of writing for the blog. Helen reminded me — she keeps track of these things the way she kept track of patients' medications, which is to say, perfectly. Two years since she signed me up and I laughed and said, "Who wants to read about an old man boiling potatoes?" The answer, it turns out, is more people than I expected and fewer people than Helen predicted, because Helen always predicts high and is usually right.

The readership has settled into something real. Not large — I'm not a celebrity, I'm a retired English teacher in Vermont — but steady. Mostly men my age, retirees, some widowers learning to cook for the first time. They write comments about their own baked beans, their own attempts at chowder, their own kitchens that feel too big or too small or too empty. I read every comment. I respond to most. Helen says I'm teaching again. Maybe she's right. The classroom is different but the job is the same: help people pay attention to what's in front of them.

I made brown bread this week. Steamed in a coffee can, the way my mother made it, the way her mother made it, the way everyone in New England made it before the world decided that bread had to be fancy. Brown bread is not fancy. It's cornmeal and molasses and rye flour and buttermilk, steamed for two hours in a can that used to hold Maxwell House coffee. It's humble. It's honest. It tastes like Vermont in the 1950s, which is to say it tastes like home when home was simpler and no one apologized for food that came out of a can.

Summer is here. The garden is producing at the rate that gardens produce when June turns the corner into July — aggressively, abundantly, without asking whether you're ready. The lettuce has bolted, which means salad season is ending and it's time to pull the plants and put in something else. The beans are flowering. The tomatoes are setting fruit. The zucchini has begun its annual campaign of world domination.

Frost spent most of the week in the shade under the maple by the sugarhouse. He's conserving energy, which at twelve is wisdom, not laziness. A dog who knows when to rest in the shade is smarter than most people I've taught. And I've taught a lot of people.

The brown bread reminded me, as it always does, that the best food doesn’t apologize for itself. When you’ve spent a week steaming something humble and honest in a coffee can, you carry that sensibility into everything else you bake — and these blueberry bran muffins are exactly that kind of food: no fuss, no performance, just good ingredients doing what good ingredients do. The garden blueberries aren’t quite ready yet, but the ones I had on hand worked fine, and I suspect the readers who write to me about their too-quiet kitchens will find these muffins good company on a summer morning.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 18 minutes | Total Time: 28 minutes | Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups wheat bran
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 large egg
2/3 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat your oven to 375°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease it lightly.
Soak the bran. In a large bowl, combine the wheat bran and buttermilk. Stir and let sit for 5 minutes so the bran absorbs the liquid and softens.
Mix the wet ingredients. Whisk the applesauce, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla into the soaked bran mixture until well combined.
Add the dry ingredients. Stir in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until just combined — do not overmix; a few lumps are fine.
Fold in the blueberries. Gently fold in the blueberries so they stay whole.
Fill and bake. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake for 16–18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool. Let muffins rest in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Eat warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Healthy Blueberry Bran Muffins — Honest Food for an Honest Kitchen