Plum and Whey-Soaked Oat Muffins

A slightly sweet, multigrain muffin made with oats soaked in whey (or buttermilk, if you don't have buckets of whey to use up) whole wheat flour, and ripe plums

Subtitle:  On Walking and Whey

What's your favorite song that's got a good beat for walking?  I'm looking for new tunes, and I'd appreciate any suggestions in the comments below.

Next month I'm walking a half marathon for no particular reason.  That's a lot of miles to walk, all at once, for the heck of it, you know?  My favorite walking partner got sent on an all-expense paid working trip to an exotic foreign locale, so I'm training with my second-favorite walking partner, Simon.  On longer walks (to me right now that's over 4 miles) he slows me down with his endless sniffing and assorted dog-on-walk behaviors.  For shorter jaunts (and yes, walking one mile to buy a quart of freshly-roasted Hatch chiles or a gallon of milk is now a short jaunt, and a gallon of milk isn't that heavy when you carry it for a mile) he's a good walking buddy.  

[Not as good as my walking buddies in Virginia--you guys are awesome and it was a joy

to get out of bed at 5:40am--even in January--to walk with you all.]

On one of our walks recently Simon and I came across a plum tree, with ripe fruit spilling out all over the street.  Being a frugal scavenger at heart I snagged a handful of ripe plums.  I'd been wanting to try a soaked-oat plum muffin.  It wasn't until I arrived home miles later that I realized I didn't have any buttermilk.  We were heading out of town though, so I didn't want to buy buttermilk before the trip.  Instead, I decided to experiment with some of the whey.
If you've wandered past my FB page, you've seen the numerous jars of whey produced when I made mozzarella and ricotta cheese after getting a good deal on milk.  I've been playing around with the whey, and this is the first recipe I'll share using whey.  I've got oatcakes and pizza dough in the pipeline as well.  Whey's a useful thing--that is, if you've got a bunch of whey, don't throw it out, it can be used!

These muffins have a slightly crumbly texture if you put the leftovers in a bag and pack it below heavier objects in a car.  I'd imagine that most muffins would behave the same in a similar situation, but I thought I should point that out.

NOTE: This recipe is not gluten free as written, because I used non-GF rolled oats and whole wheat flours. To adapt this recipe for a gluten free diet please substitute the gluten free rolled oats and flour blend of your choice, or make your own--here are some options:
http://glutenfreedoctor.com/gluten-free-flour-mix-white/
http://glutenfreedoctor.com/gluten-free-flour-mix-whole-grain/
Check labels to confirm that your other ingredients are also gluten free. Good sources for determining gluten free products can be found here:
http://knowgluten.me/2012/03/31/other-names-for-gluten/
http://glutenfreedoctor.com/gluten-free/
http://www.celiac.com/categories/Safe-Gluten%252dFree-Food-List-%7B47%7D-Unsafe-Foods-%26amp%3B-Ingredients/

Plum and Whey-soaked Oat Muffins (best with an overnight start, but an hour will do)

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup whey (or substitute buttermilk)

1 egg

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup plain yogurt (Greek yogurt would be great here, vanilla yogurt would work great too))

1 cup (4 ounces) whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking spice (or cinnamon, or a cinnamon nutmeg blend)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt (I used kosher)

1 cup chopped plums (as small as you like, and I didn't peel mine)

The evening, or at least an hour, before you'd like to bake, combine oats and whey or buttermilk in a large bowl.  Set aside.  See NOTE below.

When you're ready for muffins, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and spray a muffin pan with oil spray or line with papers.  Stir the egg, brown sugar, oil, vanilla and yogurt into the soaked oats.  Mix well.  Dump the dry ingredients on top, and mix slightly.  Add the plums, and stir until just barely combined.  You don't want a nice smooth batter here as that will make a flatter muffin--keep it a little lumpy for better lift.  Scoop** (Amazon affiliate link) batter into prepared pan.  Bake for 18 minutes, then cool 5 minutes on a rack before removing from the pan.  Makes 12 muffins.

NOTE:  I've updated my Overnight Soaked-Oat Muffin Basic recipe, because I found it's easy to prep several batches of oats and buttermilk at the beginning of the week and store them in the fridge until I'm ready to make muffins.  You can see that basic recipe here.

**My scoop holds 3 Tablespoons (1 ½ ounces) by volume, though the muffin batter is mounded in the scoop so I'm pretty sure I'm putting a good 3 ½ to 4 Tablespoons into each muffin well.  The muffin wells in my regular muffin pans each hold 3 ounces by volume.

This post is shared on the Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Tasty Tuesdays, Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up, What's Cookin' Wednesday, What's In The Box, and the From the Farm Blog Hop.