Bran Muffins

I have been looking for a good bran muffin recipe, and found this one in Josi Kilpack's culinary mystery novel, "Rocky Road."  She called this recipe Mormon Muffins and said it came from The Greenery Restaurant in Ogden, UT.  We LOVE these!

• 2 cups boiling water 
• 5 teaspoons baking soda 
• 1 cup shortening 
• 2 cups sugar 
• 4 eggs 
•  1 quart buttermilk 
• 5 cups flour 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 4 cups All-Bran cereal 
•  2 cups bran flakes 
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped 

Add soda to boiling water and set aside. Whip shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs slowly; mix well. Add buttermilk, flour, and salt; mix again. Very slowly add soda water. Gently fold cereals and walnuts into the mix. Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight or longer - this is a MUST.

In the morning, spoon 1⁄8 cup batter into greased muffin tins. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool 5 minutes.

The batter will last one week, covered and refrigerated, so you can bake fresh muffins every morning if you wish.  Or, we have found that these muffins freeze really well, so you can bake all the batter at once and then freeze the leftovers.  Pull out 1 or 2 for breakfast each morning. Coupled with a fruit smoothie this makes a delicious breakfast!

The recipe says it yields 3 dozen muffins, but it was more than twice that for me.