The Best Bran Muffins

I’m a big believer in muffins for breakfast. But let’s face it, most of time you are just eating cake. Not that I have a problem with cake for breakfast, but most days I am trying to get some fiber into the family. These muffins are the perfect kind of bran muffin—lots of fiber, lots of tasty ingredients like butter and molasses, and just enough sweetness so they don’t taste like health food. I’ve loved this recipe for years—probably at least 10 years. And of course, it’s from Cook’s Illustrated. You can find the original recipe by clicking here.

I prefer a recipe where a box of cereal isn’t the source of fiber. I find it easier to keep a small bag of wheat bran in the pantry rather than a box of All-Bran cereal. I like Bob’s Red Mill but I am sure there are many other choices. I do however like the cereal box version of the Cook’s Illustrated muffin. I’ve made both at the same time and had the family do a taste test. They like the cereal box version just slightly better whereas I prefer this version with the wheat bran. And since I am the baker, my vote counted more. So this is the version I make and freeze in small batches so that we can easily microwave a few at a time for breakfast.

Enjoy! Printable recipe click here.

The Best Bran Muffins

Original recipe from cooksillustrated.com

1 1/4 cups bleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup whole-wheat flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon table salt

1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup dark brown sugar plus 2 additional tablespoons

2 large eggs

2 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

3 tablespoons molasses

1/4 cup sour cream

1 cup buttermilk plus 3 additional tablespoons

1 ½ cups wheat bran (I like Bob’s Red Mill)

1 cup raisins (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix flour through nutmeg in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Beat butter in large bowl of electric mixer or with handheld mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add brown sugar, increase speed to medium-high, and beat until combined and fluffy, about 1 minute longer. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly before adding the next. Beat in vanilla, molasses, and sour cream until thoroughly combined and creamy, about 1 minute longer. At this point mine always looks curdled. Reduce speed to low; beat in buttermilk and half the flour mixture until combined, about 1 minute. Beat in remaining flour mixture until incorporated and slightly curdled looking, about 1 minute longer, scraping sides of bowl as necessary. Stir in bran and raisins if using.

3. Spray a muffin tin. Divide batter evenly among molds using spoon or ice cream scoop. Bake until a toothpick inserted into center withdraws cleanly or with a few moist particles adhering to it, about 20-25 minutes. Set on wire rack to cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove muffins from tin and serve warm.

I prefer to double this recipe and freeze muffins. They microwave great while still frozen!

 

 

Office Makeover

After a long three months the office is finally done. I’m not even sure I can call it an office anymore, more like an office/sitting room?

Here’s how the office looked before. Yellow walls (not quite as yellow as these photos), turquoise desk, Ikea couch, shag carpet. That’s pretty much it.

The room, as an office, was just fine (well, not terribly stylish) but I really wanted to create more space in these tiny little rooms in the front of my house.

I wanted to move the desk from the main wall to the opposite wall. That way it wouldn’t be the first thing you saw when you walked into my house. The hideous entry way travertine tile was replaced as well as the shag carpet.

GOALS:

1) Create a “formal” front room—a place I could visit with guests away from the family room—meaning away from the noisy TV.

2) The room needed to flow into the super tiny piano room adjacent to the foyer. I felt like whenever we played the piano for guests they had to stand right next to you—like a lounge singer. Or sit awkwardly right behind you. That room is the size of a postage stamp. What were the previous owners (who built this house) thinking.

3) The room still needed to have a computer in an open space. I don’t believe in letting children have a computer or internet access in their rooms (too much bad stuff out there) so we still needed a family computer in an open space where I can check up on the kids.

4) A place where Paul and I could get away from the noisy children and be alone to read a good book or visit about our day without eavesdroppers. The doors close in the office so privacy can be created easily.

Those are a lot of goals for a tiny 11 feet x 11 feet room!

DURING THE PROJECT:

Here are some pictures during the remodel—shaggy carpet is still in, walls have been painted white, baseboards are being painted.

Don’t I look cool holding an orbit sander with dust all over my butt. Classy.

My girls have been begging to learn to paint so I figured this was the right project because the carpet was being ripped out. No drop cloths necessary and I didn’t fret over drips. Yes.

Shaggy carpet gone, super dark wood floors are in! It is a small room, only about 11 feet x 11 feet. During the remodel we switched to Google Fiber so I had them put the internet switches (I have no idea what you call those kind of outlets) in the opposite corner of where the desk used to be. That’s why the photo below looks ridiculous with internet wires everywhere.

The wood floors were a real bargain from RC Willey. A really dark stained Hickory. They were $2.99/ft. and with labor I think both rooms (office and adjacent piano room) came to around $1200. What a deal.

Since we went with white walls I wanted to frame the window with some casing otherwise it would be too plain. My father was in town from  California a couple months ago so I enlisted his help. And by help I mean I bought the wood and he did all of the work. He is an amazing carpenter.

Every girl should have a handy dad. (My girls don’t, but I do. Paul has other talents—he’ll be able to do his kids’ taxes.)

FURNITURE:

Big purchases first. I knew I had a good budget for the sofa and the wingback chair. Once I priced the chair and sofa I realized I would have to bargain shop for everything else. I headed to Alice Lane where everything is luxurious, classy and timeless. If money grew on trees I would have them decorate the entire room floor to ceiling. Ok, they’d decorate my entire house.  A stylist at Alice Lane helped me pick the London Sofa in a gray/taupe velvet. I was giddy when she suggested that sofa because I have had my eye on it ever since I saw it in last year’s Parade of Homes. (Click here to see it in turquoise velvet in that beautiful Parade home.) A note about picking fabrics—this velvet was the cheapest grade of fabric I could get. My first choice was a true gray velvet but that doubled the price of the sofa. So this was a very happy second choice.

Here I am the day the couch arrived a few weeks ago. Slooowly getting there!

I love a classic wingback chair but it has to be modernized with simple lines. I went with Kalinda’s Chair in a warm cognac leather. Actually, my husband Paul picked that leather. It’s very manly but I love the crackly-worn finish of it. Timeless.

 

The cute chrome & glass side table came from Four Chairs furniture. The ottoman is the Klippan footstool from Ikea.  I’ve had it for years but now they’re discontinued. I recovered it once again in this Ikat fabric.

The 5’x8’  navy/white herringbone rug was only $75 at Rugs USA. Love that website.

Finally the desk. I would have loved to have the budget for a fancy desk. Something sleek and modern. But splurging on the couch and leather chair meant going cheap on the desk. For now, this Ikea ensemble works just fine. I first saw it in this office makeover and knew I could make it work too. If it wasn’t for the ugly black printer I think I would like this space better. (Ironically a wireless printer has to be wired to at least one computer. Or at least this one does.)

The Ikea table top is Linnmon, which sits on the Alex cabinet and two silver legs. The file cabinet is Micke which had to be on wheels so we could still close the French doors. The space is a tight space for the desk (and everything that is needed to house a computer) but I am very happy with how this corner looks now, especially considering it was about $120 for everything. Thanks Ikea.

The Janette gray chair is from Overstock. The retro telephone is from Amazon.

The blue bookshelf was dragged from somewhere else in the house. My dad and I sprayed it blue a couple years ago. It was providence to have something fit that space that I didn’t have to pay for. Well, I paid for it years ago, but you know what I mean.

SEWING:

I made a new roman shade for the window.  Don’t forget, I have tutorials on this blog to teach you how to make your own roman shade. See the the sidebar. This is the fabric I used.

The sewing continued by making all the pillows. Below is my favorite pillow for the room. I took blue linen and white linen strips and sewed them together and then made blue/gray piping. Yum.

All the pillows coordinate but don’t match too much. I hate it when everything is matchy-matchy.  The coral print is Amy Butler. All the fabrics came from fabric.com.

Finishing off the pillows are a blue velvet pillow with shell buttons, a plaid men’s suiting pillow, an embroidered pillow with my Triangles Scattered design on linen, and a white linen pillow with my pineapple design also in white.

ARTWORK:

With white walls (Benjamin Moore White Dove—same as my kitchen cabinets) I knew we had to have lots of colorful artwork.

I’ve been noticing the style right now is a floating frame around a canvas.

I went classic with some Van Gogh prints from Great Big Canvas for the main wall. Make sure you wait until they have a 40-50% coupon. Each canvas framed was $120.

The watercolor is from So Very Happy Art on Etsy. I had it custom framed at Provo Art & Frame with a double mat in navy and white and a bronze-y frame. I always love how they frame my prints.

The watercolor is the perfect modern touch over the very traditional wing chair.

The lamp was purchased at TJ Maxx and was originally white. But I sprayed it orange.

The prints above the desk are from Yao Cheng which I put into cheap frames I’ve had for years. I bought them at Michael’s and love how thick the mats are. The prints are only 8”x10” but with such large frames/mats they look bigger. And custom. You can see in my “before” photos at the beginning of this post that I’ve used these frames for years.

The bookcase needed some art as well but with so much art around the room already I needed something neutral—like a mirror. I found this mirror at Target.

The TJ Maxx silver lamp (dragged from elsewhere in the house) is too short so it is standing on books to give it height. I’m still looking for a better lamp. Most of the accessories are either from TJ Maxx or West Elm. The vintage Brownie camera was found in Nashville last summer at an antique mall. A great score for this amateur hobby photographer.

Finally it’s all done and my family of five can enjoy it for years to come.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

The Holy Grail of Cinnamon Bread has been found. I’ve made six loaves of this goodness already and plan to make more this week. I’ve given some to a sick friend (better than Tylenol right?), to a friend for her birthday, and to my ungrateful family. I warn you—this bread goes down easy. And by easy I mean I can easily eat 4 slices in 10 minutes and still want to go back for more. Dangerous to your waistline. The first time I made it I left home for half the day, dreaming of eating a couple more slices only to arrive home and find the teenagers had finished it off without saving me the last slice. Savages.

If you don’t already have a digital scale, get one. Please invest $30 because I can see how easy it would be to make this dough too dry by adding too much flour. The dough is VERY sticky and I would have thought something was wrong if I had not weighed out my flour.

The recipe is from The Cook’s Illustrated Baking book. I’m quickly making my way through this amazing book. Have mercy. It’s also on their website.

This bread is not a fast bread. You have to let it rise 4 different times, maybe 5, I can’t remember. Yes, the rise times are kinda short—around half an hour to one hour for each rise. But don’t think you’re gonna make this when you have errands to run. Make it when you are cleaning your house or working from home that day. It’s easy but messy and requires a good 4 hours of your time. Just look at my counters? The dough needs to rest too after I roll it up—yup, more rise time. You have to let it rest like this for a few minutes before you cut the logs in half lengthwise and twist together.

Once twisted, they go in a pan, rise some more, get a bath with an egg, and then finally you can bake.

You’ll have to cover them with foil the last little bit in the oven or else they’ll burn. They do get really brown but don’t worry, they won’t burn. Unless you skip the foil tent. Don’t do that.

I am not a huge fan of raisins in desserts (definitely not in my cinnamon rolls) but this recipe convinced me otherwise. My son thinks it needs even more raisins but I like the current ratio. I don’t use golden raisins—just regular brown ones. The texture is light and fluffy which you can’t say about most cinnamon swirl breads. Not heavy at all! It has just the right amount of sweetness too. Perfect for toasting and adding butter.

I would suggest getting the recipe from the website (watching the video really helps too) or the book because the illustrations really do help. This just isn’t a beginner recipe for bakers without the extra help. Here’s the written recipe though if you don’t need photos/video help. (A paid subscription is necessary to cooksillustrated.com to view videos. Best money I spend every year.)

CLICK HERE FOR PRINTABLE RECIPE