Oatmeal Cranberry Muffins

This is going to be a short and quick post. Sometimes, I need to stop rambling about everything from the weather, to my technical woes, to my amazing toddler's latest achievement, and let the post be about the food, right?

Besides, I gotta run. :)

Before I go, let me tell you - I am not a huge fan of oatmeal porridge. But I love baked goods that have oatmeal in them. So when I came across a recipe for oatmeal breakfast muffins, I figured I would make them so I could eat them for breakfast and not feel guilty. The recipe needed a lot of modification, but this is what I ended up with.

This recipe makes five muffins. Fill the empty muffin cup of your 6-muffin tray with water, and that will take care of several things. It will keep the muffins moist, and stop the tin from warping.

Oatmeal Cranberry Muffins
Adapted from 'Muffins Galore!'
Ingredients
25g (5 tbsp) oats
140ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
120g (1 cup) self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
75g (1/3 cup) dark brown sugar
50g (1/2 cup) dried cranberries (extra for garnish)
1 small egg (or 1/2 large egg) beaten lightly
3 tbsp canola oil
50g icing sugar

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200.
2. In a small bowl, combine the oats, milk and vanilla and set aside to soak for at least 10 minutes.
3. Mix the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
4. Stir in the cranberries.
5. Stir in the oil and egg into the oatmeal mixture.
6. Add the oatmeal mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.
7. Spoon the batter into your muffin tray, and make sure to fill any empty muffin cups with water.
8. Bake for about 20 minutes or until firm to the touch.
9. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes and turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
10. Melt the icing sugar with enough water to make a thin, smooth glaze.
11. Drizzle some of this over the top of each muffin, and let the muffins soak up the glaze.
12. Top with more dried cranberries, and serve warm.

The muffin itself is not very sweet, and so it really does need that glaze/syrup over the top. I love biting into it and finding moist bits of cranberry. That's my favorite part of a fruity muffin. Other than that, this muffin is soft, moist and a great way to start the day.

In other news, I really want to thank Elisabeth of Food and Thrift Finds for sharing this award with me. I really appreciate it, Elisabeth. Thank you!