Blueberry Bran Muffins

How I have been remiss!  It used to be that an Ina recipe landed on my blog almost every other month.  There was her spanakopita and her cheese straws.  There was her panko-crusted salmon with french lentils and her maple-roasted winter squash.  Every dish, it seemed, was a winner.

And with six of her cookbooks sitting on my shelf, each neatly arranged according to the spine’s color, there was no shortage of recipes at my disposal.  There were even two recent books — Make it Ahead and Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust — that, horror of horrors, I had not yet acquired.

I was desperately falling behind on my Ina testing.

Fortunately, the St. Louis County Public Library had each of these two titles at the ready, no waiting list required.  Ending my unnecessarily long Barefoot Contessa hiatus, I tried these blueberry bran muffins.  As with all things Ina, I cut some of the listed vegetable oil.  To our taste, the recipe did not suffer.  As with all things Ina, the muffins were delicious!

I recently discovered that the Barefoot Contessa website has an index of all but her two most recent books.  This is brilliant!  I often find myself just searching google for recipes, knowing full well that I should be searching through my cookbook collection for recipes that are tried and true — and not simply relying on the musings of home cooks (like myself!).  The index does not provide the recipe itself — for obvious copyright reasons — but does guide you to the book that contains that recipe.

Eat Your Books does this across all cookbooks, but for a fee.  But with such a large percentage of my cookbooks coming from the Barefoot Contessa collection, I have a new favorites under my bookmarks!

Blueberry Bran Muffins

PREP TIME: 15 minutes
COOK TIME: 30 minutes
YIELD: 12 Muffins

Recipe adapted from Ina Garten’s Make it Ahead

WHAT TO GRAB:
 1/3 cup vegetable oil plus extra for grease in the pan
 1 cup all-purpose flour
 1 teaspoon kosher salt
 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 7 ounces of Greek yogurt
 1/2 cup of sugar
 1/2 cup honey
 Two extra large eggs lightly beaten
 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
 2 1/2 cups of wheat bran (I used Bob's Red Mill)
 One and a half cups of fresh blueberries (8 ounces)

HOW YOU DO IT:
1.  Preheat the oven to 350 F. Brush the top of the muffin pan with vegetable oil and line it with 12 paper liners.

2.  In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, vegetable oil, honey, eggs, and vanilla until combined. Add the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined.   Gently stir in the wheat bran and blueberries until combined.

3.  Scoop the batter into muffin cups.  Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops are golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool for five minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.