Healthy Whole Wheat Muffins

Veterans Day was Sunday this year. I notice it every year and I do not discuss it, which is the arrangement I made with myself some time in the late 1970s and which I have kept since. There are men who process what happened in Vietnam by talking about it. I respect that. It is not my way. Some things are best carried quietly. Vermont teaches you this. You carry the weight, you do the work, you do not discuss the load.

What I did on Sunday: woke at five as usual, made coffee, sat with Frost by the woodstove for an hour. Made breakfast — eggs over easy, toast, the slab bacon from the farm down the road that has been selling us pork products since before David was born. Ate it at the kitchen table while the news played low on the radio. Fed Frost. Sharpened two knives that have been needing it for a month. Walked the property to check the sugarhouse. These are the structures of a day.

Hemingway understood this: a man does the work of a day and the day is made. Thoreau understood it too, though he had more time than most of us and could philosophize the walk to the woodpile. I prefer Hemingway's version. Less philosophy, more eggs.

Helen spent the morning making rolls. She makes them on cold Sunday mornings in November and December — a soft white roll, slightly sweet, enriched with butter and an egg, baked until golden. The smell of them baking at seven in the morning is one of the fixed coordinates of my life, a smell that means safety and warmth and the particular luck of having married a woman who bakes bread on cold mornings. I ate three rolls with the eggs. I am not apologetic about this.

We called Sarah in the afternoon. She asked how we were. We were fine. She asked what we had for breakfast. I described the eggs and the rolls. She said it sounded perfect. She is in Portland, in a life I understand only in broad strokes — her practice, her family, the city. We talk every week. We keep our lives in the other person's peripheral vision, which is how the Bergstroms have always communicated love. It works as well as most systems and better than some.

Helen’s rolls are her own, and I have no business pretending otherwise — but when people ask what they can make at home that carries that same quality, that smell of something warm and honest baking at seven in the morning on a cold Sunday, I point them toward a good whole wheat muffin. These are not complicated. They do not ask much of you. They ask only that you make them, and that you eat them while they are still warm, and that you do not apologize for eating three.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1 cup milk (whole or 2%)
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 375°F. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin or line it with paper liners.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the honey (or maple syrup), milk, melted butter, egg, and vanilla extract until smooth.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a wooden spoon or spatula until just combined. Do not overmix — a few lumps are fine.
Fill the tin. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full.
Bake. Bake for 18–20 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool slightly and serve. Let the muffins rest in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Best served warm with butter.

Nutrition (per serving)

Healthy Whole Wheat Muffins — The Warmth Helen Bakes Into a Cold November Morning