No cool story behind these muffins. I woke up one morning and was bored with my breakfast options. I wanted cinnamon chip pancakes, but… eh. I didn’t want oatmeal because no doctoring in the world could get me to choke it down. I kinda wanted cereal, but like Chinese food, I eat it and then I’m hungry 20 minutes later. Then I thought about muffins, but I didn’t want the usual muffin suspects and I wasn’t in the mood to blow 400 calories on cinnamon coffee cake muffins either. A slight dilemma.

Know what I did though? Opened the cookbook to the muffin section and pointed. Want to know what I pointed at? Bran muffins. Bran! Sigh. So be it.

I had to doctor the recipe of course because besides health-conscious Baby Boomers, who keeps bran products hanging around? Then I remembered The Hero eats Raisin Bran like Kellogg’s is going out of business. So I married a closet health-conscious Baby Boomer wannabe. Sigh again.

Opting not to get into an animated discussion about why the Two Scoops is gone, I decided to sub out the bran cereal for Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. I like Honey Bunches of Oats, but it plays with my emotions too much. The flakes are soggy as soon as the milk hits them, but the bunches keep on crunching hours later. I’m probably a Just Bunches fan, but then who needs all that crunching first thing in the morning? Not me.

Slowly coming out of my breakfast funk and blahs, I also swapped out some oats for flour. I just felt like it was the right thing to do. I thought about adding chocolate chips, but I pulled myself back from the edge. It was a run day.

I wasn’t all that thrilled about the muffins until I ate one. The texture pleasantly surprised me with a little crunch from the almonds and they were dense enough that my bottomless pit, uh, stomach, registered full after eating one with a boiled egg and cup of tea. Hours later and I’m still not checking the snack shelf. This recipe is a keeper.

Cereal Muffins
adapted from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook

• 2 cups flake cereal, crushed
• ½ cup raisins
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1⅓ cups milk
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• ⅜ cup all-purpose flour
• ⅜ cup ground oats
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a muffin tin with baking cups.

Add cereal, raisins and vanilla to a medium bowl and mix in the milk. Let the mixture stand until the cereal is softened, about 5 minutes.

Beat in the egg and oil with a fork. Add the remaining ingredients to the cereal mixture and stir until mixture is just moistened. Divide the batter evenly between the muffin tins.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Immediately remove the muffins to a rack to cool. Serve warm and store leftovers in an airtight container.