Weekday Morning Bran Muffins

Unlike most of my recipes, these are sans butter and oil; these are a very low fat and guiltless weekday morning grab and go (which is typically the way I handle breakfast these days) and perfectly paired with a banana or other portable fruit.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup of pitted, chopped dates
• 2/3 teaspoon of allspice (this is a lot of allspice - I love it, but reduce this amount if it's a flavor you are not accustomed too)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1 cup of wheat bran
• 1/2 cup of soy milk or buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 2-3 tablespoons of honey (depending on your tastes)
• 3/4 teaspoon of freshly grated ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
• 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed (this can be nixed if you don't have it around)
• 1/3 teaspoon of salt
• 1 and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
  
• 2/3 cup unbleached flour
• 1/4 cup of old fashioned rolled oats

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line two muffin pans with paper cups.
2. Mix applesauce, spices, and dates in a saucepan. Place this on medium heat and cook, stirring frequently for 15-20 minutes until the mixture reduces and your place smells divine.
3. Transfer the applesauce (now apple-date sauce which, BTW, would be amazing with a bit of vanilla ice cream if you want to stop here) to a bowl. Stir in milk, bran, egg, flax, honey, and vanilla. Let this stand for 10 minutes or so.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. When ready, whisk this into the applesauce-bran mixture.
   
5. Fill the baking cups to the brim and bake for 20-25 minutes.
   

Watch these closely. When you can smell the muffins you should check the tops to see if they spring back a bit. If so, go ahead and pull them. With muffins that are typically dense as with bran muffins, it is always a good idea to pull them a bit before you think they are truly done. All baked goods continue to cook from their own internal heat. Overcooking these will give you a dry-begging-for-coffee-to-wash-it-down muffin. No good.

The workweek is not so bad when you have fresh baked goods to start the day. Suck it up and eat it up!