100% Whole Wheat Muffins

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 eats, or tries to, on $6/day.

I don't know what my problem is with breakfast foods. Honestly I just love them. Way back when I was young and single, breakfast was by far and away my biggest, most favorite meal. It was also my idea of the perfect date. And on days that I was very very hungry I'd walk home craving--not a steak, not a big plate of pasta, not even a milkshake--but oatmeal with a layer of melted brown sugar on top. So I hope you forgive the fact that this site is a wee bit breakfast heavy. And cookie heavy. And chocolate things heavy. Please. Forgive.

When you think of whole wheat muffins, you think of muffins at their most virtuous. And their driest. And blandest. And most dreadful in every way. This recipe came to me by accident. My friend photocopied a recipe I'd asked for from one of those homemade recipe books that friends and church groups sometimes create. At the bottom of the page was this recipe with the promise: "Almost like cake!" Well, I thought that was a recipe worth trying. It was not, for the record, just like cake, so don't get any overly lofty ideas in your head. But it was very sweet and moist with a lovely lovely crumb that did, indeed, resemble cake. The only problem was that it contained 1 full cup of sugar for about 12 muffins. I was worried that reducing the sugar would be the muffin's undoing, but these reduced sugar muffins turned out very nicely as well, although I must give this warning: they were slightly slightly drier. This didn't bother us, however. The only thing that irked my kids was that they did not contain chocolate chips. Because as we all know, breakfast foods that don't come in a box should contain chocolate chips. If you, like me, have ruined your children, throw in a handful of chocolate or cinnamon flavored chips. If you, like better mothers, have not ruined your children, you could always throw in a handful of blueberries or raspberries instead.

100% Whole Wheat Muffins
makes 12 muffins
donated to a homemade book by a person named Angie Farnsworth (thanks Angie)
Prep time: 5 minutes
Bake time: 10-15 minutes
Cost: $70
(butter: .30, sugar: .15, egg: .10, milk: .15)

1/2 C butter, softened
1/2 C brown sugar
1 egg
2 C whole what flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 C milk
handful chips or fruit, optional

Cream together butter and brown sugar. Add egg. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then add them to the butter mixture. Remember that with muffins you want the dry ingredients just barely incorporated. If you mix the shadingdang out of the batter, your muffins will come out dry and tough instead of light and cake-like. If using, the bad mothers can gently fold in their chips and the good mothers can gently fold in their fruit. Put batter into 12 muffin tins. Bake at 425 for 10-15 minutes. Note: With this reduced sugar recipe, you want to be sure not to overcook these babies or they really will come out dry.

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