Cracklin Oat Bran Apple Muffins

Cracklin Oat Bran Cereal. It's been around forever. I remember eating it as a snack when I was a lot younger. It taste like little crunchy oatmeal cookies with a touch of cinnamon. Although my boys say it looks like cat food. I had not bought this cereal in years - I can't even remember the last time but I came across a muffin recipe that uses them so I bought a box. The recipe that I found online was supposedly on the cereal box years ago. I made so many changes to the recipe that I must say it was "adapted" from that original recipe but kind of nowhere near it. These were indeed tasty and I would like to think somewhat healthy - probably healthier if I left off the cinnamon vanilla icing that I added. At first I couldn't figure out how the cereal would break down enough in the muffins since you don't ground them up before adding them. The cereal pieces are very crunchy and kind of hard right out of the box but after softening in the milk and then baking, they were visible but no crunch was left. I enjoyed these muffins a lot and they certainly are not very sweet which is why I chose to add the icing but then again, I just have a tremendous sweet tooth.

Cracklin' Oat Bran Apple Muffins

This recipe includes all my changes.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour (I bet some wheat flour would be wonderful)
4 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups Cracklin Oat Bran cereal
1 cup buttermilk or whole milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 apple, diced

1. In mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. 2. In large mixing bowl, combine Cracklin Oat Bran cereal and milk & vanilla. Let stand 2 minutes or until cereal softens. Add egg and oil; mix well. Add flour mixture, stirring only until combine. Gently stir in apples. Portion batter evenly into twelve 2 1/2-inch muffin-pan cups coated with cooking spray. 3. Bake at 400° F for 25 minutes or until lighly browned. I left oven at 400 degrees for about 5-7 minutes then reduced temp to 375 degrees for remainder of baking. And I put my muffin pan on top of 2 stacked baking sheets to prevent the bottoms from overbrowning. My icing consisted of powdered sugar, vanilla, cinnamon & whole milk. I made it pretty thick so it took awhile to drizzle over the sides of the muffins.