Oatmeal Prune Muffins

Almost 30 years ago, I bought a cookbook specializing in muffins to send to my daughter-in-law in St. Louis for her birthday.  Before it left my hands, I copied down a lot of the recipes to try some day.  I’m just now getting around to this one.

• Servings: 12
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• 1 cup water
• 1-1/2 cups chopped, pitted dried prunes
• 2/3 cup uncooked old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup Canola oil
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. grated orange peel*

*I always keep small containers of orange, lemon and lime peel in the freezer.  Just a few minutes of thawing time will give enough for the small amounts needed in cooking and it tastes like fresh grated peel.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Grease or line with paper or silicone 12 muffin cups.

In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil; remove from heat.  Stir in prunes and oats; let stand 20 minutes.

While mixture is cooling, in a large bowl whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Stir oil, beaten eggs, vanilla and orange peel into prune mixture in saucepan.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients; add prune mixture and stir just to combine.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups; bake @ 400 degrees F for  20 to 25 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in center of one muffin comes out clean.

Remove muffin tin to wire rack.  Cool 5 minutes before removing muffins from cups (I like to remove the silicone cups from the muffin pan right away).

Remove muffins from pan or silicone liners to rack to cool.

Makes 12 muffins

After muffins are cool, store in an airtight container like this 45-year-old Tupperware piece.

Muffins also freeze well.

These muffins are a  very good combination of tasty and healthy.