Oat Applesauce Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/2 cup raisins
  
• 1 egg

Combine the rolled oats with the buttermilk and let sit on the kitchen counter for 2 hours (we did it for and hour and 15 minutes, but it really should be for the whole time).
Preheat oven to 375.
In a small bowl, cover the raisins with boiling water and let them hydrate for about 5 minutes. Drain.
In a separate bowl, combine whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, wheat germ, and brown sugar.
Stir in the oat/buttermilk mixture. Add the applesauce, the egg, and the raisins. Stir to combine.
Put the batter in 12 greased muffin cups or a muffin tin. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Thoughts: While we were preparing this recipe, we were like "huh, there's no salt here. I wonder if we should add salt?" and "huh, there are no spices included. Maybe we should add spices." Despite thinking both of these things aloud, we did neither, and that was a huge mistake. The muffins came out chewier than we wanted (probably because the oats hadn't been thoroughly soaked in the buttermilk (because we're too impatient)), and furthermore, they were pretty tasteless. They badly needed both spices and salt. Thank god we added raisins (they weren't in the original recipe) because they added some flavor.

In the future, we would:
1) add probably 1/2 tsp salt
2) add cardamom or cinnamon or something -- maybe generic Baking Spice? Maybe 1/2-1 tsp
3) soak the oats for the whole time

On the other hand, this recipe is ridiculously healthy. The muffins didn't taste bad, they just didn't taste like anything. If you ate them with lemon curd, that would probably help. We might actually have a recipe for lemon curd. Hm.

Disaster Index: 4/10 - needs improvement