Vegan Applesauce Bran Muffins with Blueberries

Because I posted this picture on Twitter and all these people were like HEY I WANT TO MAKE THOSE HOW DID YOU DO IT?

Okay, a few things before we start: this is just a basic muffin recipe I cobbled together from the Internet, with a couple of vegan substitutions. I didn’t make the substitutions because I’m vegan, but because I was out of eggs and I didn’t want to go to the store. Once I decided to do one vegan substitute, doing one more wasn’t that big a deal.

Ingredients:

1 C all-purpose flour
1C bran cereal (I use Bob’s Red Mill Hot Bran Cereal For Cool People)
1/3 C applesauce
2/3 cup brown sugar
1t vanilla extract
1C almond milk (unsweetened)
1t apple cider vinegar
½ C blueberries
1T flax seed meal + 3T water

Before we even start you’re going to pre-heat your oven to 375. If you have a convection oven, set it to 350. If you have a nuclear reactor, it’s going to be too hot, so find a regular oven.

First, make your egg substitute by mixing one the flax meal and three tablespoons of water together. Set aside for at least five minutes.

Second, make some fake buttermilk by mixing a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice) into the almond milk. Let that sit until the egg substitute is done doing its thing. Put them next to each other, so they feel like they have to compete to be the best.

Third, combine the fake buttermilk you just made with the bran cereal, in a large bowl. Stir it all together so it’s mixed really well, and let it sit for ten minutes. Tell the egg thing and the buttermilk thing that they had it easy.

While it’s sitting there, you combine the brown sugar, the fake egg stuff, and the vanilla extract. Mix them up really well, too.

When ten minutes are up, mix the sugar stuff into the bran cereal and stir like crazy until it’s all combined. Use a spatula thing (available from Spatula City) to make sure you get all the sugar stuff out of the bowl you mixed it into. If any of the sugar stuff is left behind, it will attract C.H.U.D.s. I am totally serious and this is really important.

Now take the flour, and mix it into the bowl of cereal, milk, and sugar stuff. Mix the hell out of it because you want the moisture to be evenly distributed. Double check when you’re done. Is there any hell left in your mix? Keep mixing until all the hell is out.

Now take half a cup of blueberries and dump it in. Guess what you’re going to do? That’s right, mix it all together.

You have a bowl of almost muffins! Good for you. But don’t go high fiving yourself just yet, tough guy. Now you gotta put some paper muffin things into a muffin pan, and use a big spoon (I used a tablespoon from the silverware drawer) to put about 2 spoonfuls of batter into each muffin thing. I got about 10 muffins this way, but your total number of muffins will probably vary due to variations in weather, air pressure, time of day, the stock market in Asia, and how intensely your neighbors have recently had sex on the other side of your apartment wall while you were trying to sleep.

Your oven should be ready now, so go ahead and put the muffin pan into it and close the door. Say a prayer to whatever god of baking you think will pay the most attention to your plea.

It takes about 15 minutes at 375 in a regular oven, or about 12 minutes at 350 in a convection oven for your muffins to be all baked and ready to go. I recommend stabbing them with a toothpick, so they know who’s boss, and also so you can find out if they’re ready (they’re ready when batter doesn’t stick to them).

Put them on a wire rack to cool. Be really careful when you take them out of the muffin pan, because I don’t want to have burned the everlovingfuck out of my fingers for nothing.

You can eat them right away, while they’re hot, but they’ll be a little chewy. If you prefer them to be slightly less chewy, let them cool for about 20 minutes or whatever.

These have like up to 70000000 calories in them but they also give you superpowers if you make them right, so it’s a tradeoff.

EDITED TO ADD: I’m not a particularly skilled baker, so maybe this recipe could benefit from leavening, like a teaspoon of baking powder, or maybe some baking soda (because it would theoretically react with the vinegar) but I don’t know for sure. If that sort of thing matters to you, the Internet has answers and suggestions for you. Oh, and this isn’t gluten free, but if you use your commas correctly, you could give it away and be like, “It’s gluten, free!”

22 thoughts on “Recipe: Vegan Applesauce Bran Muffins with Blueberries”

…and Will provides light comic entertainment while you cook. “paper muffin things” got an lol

So when is the cookbook coming out? Because l’m at work reading this and smiling and people are saying “what’s so funny?” I told them I am reading an excerpt from “Wil Wheaton’s Most Excellent Adventures in Conversation and Baking Tasty Things You Will Want to Eat”.

I’d buy the book, Wil, seriously!

Aaron says:

14 September, 2016 at 11:51 am

“So when is the cookbook coming out?”

This is exactly what I was thinking while reading this. I think the world needs (nay! Must have) the [Clever Title] cookbook by Wil Wheaton.

Yum !

I love the fact that the reason these are vegan was because you didn’t want to go to the store…. but you still wanted muffins. That’s pure awesome right there.

How funny!! Practical too!!

Uhhh
Precisely how many mini muffins in a minipan in a toaster oven will this recipe make? Would you say 16.6 muffins is a good guess? Ha ha I,am going to share this recipe with a friend.

I too love your sense of humour as another commenter already said & I think books are in your future.

Thanks

I would totally buy your cookbook. This was the most fun I’ve had reading a recipe, and I’m one of those weirdos who like reading recipes.

I didn’t even want to make muffins, I just read this whole thing because it was highly entertaining. Thanks Wil!

I loved reading this. 🙂 I hope you will document more baking and/or cooking adventures in the future, if you feel like it. 🙂 Thanks for sharing. Hope you are having a lovely day!

If more recipes were written like this one was, I’d be happier about following them. 🙂

See, you meant this (presumably) as a muffin recipe, but I took it as a tutorial on attracting C.H.U.D.S.

Spudnuts says:

14 September, 2016 at 10:02 am

Please write a “recipe book” where all of the recipes are coded instructions on attracting, battling, capturing, and domesticating C.H.U.D.S.

I am a fan. You have to do what I say.

Wil is in charge of writing all the recipes from now on. And re-writing the existing ones.

Oohhh.. Sorry about the fingers.

Thanks for the recipe!

One of these days I’ll write down my wife’s vegan red sauce. Though I prefer it topped with mounds of Crimini mushrooms sauteed in stinky rich French butter so I suppose “vegetarian” might be a more accurate tag. Everything I know about Italian cooking came from either Marcella Hazan or Mr. Meatball’s blog and are of the rustic country Italian comfort food style. I’ve been a vegetarian for several years, but remember a time before that was the case, and I can say without any hesitation that Mr. Meatball’s “Sunday Gravy” is the best thing ever made with meat. Use good tomatoes that have some snap to them – San Marzano or similar – and if you use paste, use Italian style paste in the toothpaste tube, not the grocery-store cans of tomato paste (that taste like dehydrated catsup) don’t leave out the ribs or sausage or the final addition of butter at the end. My wife’s vegan red sauce was inspired by Mr. Meatball’s Sunday Gravy.

Mr Meatball does vegetarian recipes too, if you’re cutting down on meat for health purposes. Some of it is so simple. Sautéed hazelnuts with butter & garlic over angel-hair pasta… 20 minute comfort food. Sublime.

http://mistermeatball.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-vegetarian-recipe-index.html

LOLMAO – please write more recipes so we can chuckle and eat at the same time! I’d buy your cookbook.

I’m ready for my bowl of “almost muffins.” LOL

Wow, these actually sound delicious. So what superpowers did you get from them?

This was just the best.

Oh, you crazy Americans measuring ingredients in coulomb, tesla and
metric tons. Well, at least you’re not using imperial units 😉

But seriously, thanks for the (entertaining) recipe. I will try it when
vegan friends come to visit or when I happen to run out of eggs (which
is more often than one might think).

Delicious and entertaining! thank you for the giggles and the nommy breakfast! I can relate to cooking/baking with whatever ingredients you have because you don’t want to leave the house.

You and the Swedish Chef should really consider developing a cookbook and a few demonstration videos.