You look at yourself in disgust. After months of cooking Highly Variable Recipes, you realize that you have eaten nothing but sugar for the past year. Now, see what has happened! You weigh 2.5 pounds more than you did at this time last year! Time to turn over a new leaf. Here is a highly healthy recipe for oatmeal muffins.
First, you need some oats and milk in equal volumes. Mix them together and leave the oats to soak for a little while. You will need them again, so don’t eat them absent-mindedly while mixing the other ingredients.
Take out another bowl, and mix egg and oil. One egg for every cup of oats is proper, and one-quarter as much oil as milk. A little less oil will not kill you, and if you want to use less, the muffins would be even healthier. (That, ladies and gentlemen, is a guilt-trip.) Beat the eggs and oil together. Put in some vanilla.
In yet another bowl, mix together flour, white sugar, baking powder, and salt. Use the same amount of flour as oats, a quarter as much sugar, a couple teaspoonfuls of baking powder (or baking soda, what the heck), and maybe a teaspoon of salt. If you only have brown sugar, just use that.
Mix the egg/oil mixture with the oats/milk mixture. Then, slowly, fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Stir them together until they are combined- but do not stir too much, or the muffins will be tough. The next paragraph contains science.
Flour contains two proteins called glutenin and gliadin. When you add water to the flour and stir, these proteins combine to form gluten. In small amounts, gluten provides some elasticity, but you don’t want the muffins to become chewy and dense. Stir as little as possible so that you don’t get too much gluten forming.
Get out your muffin tins, and either grease them or put paper muffin cups inside them. Fill the cups about 2/3 full with batter, and bake at 450°F for around 20 minutes. Stick them with a toothpick to check if they are done: the toothpick will come out clean when the muffins are finished.
A note: there is nothing preventing you from putting goodies in them, so long as they are healthy goodies. This would include cranberries, raisins, blueberries, and nuts. It would not include chocolate chips, Skittles, M&Ms, toffee, or caramel bits. I absolutely forbid you to use any of these, delicious though they may be.
Eat your healthy muffins in moderation. No matter how healthy you make them, they will still taste good, and things that taste good are bad for you. Enjoy them as much as you can, though – from now on, the good things in life are closed to you until you lose those extra pounds. Coming up next week: how to cook celery!
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