These moist and flavorful muffins packed with beautiful strawberries and speckles of chocolate will start your day off with a guiltless smile and maybe even a happy dance.

Every now and again, I come across a product that I love. I’ve become a huge fan of Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour. If you follow this blog, you’ll know we love cooking. But you’ve probably noticed that we are obsessed with baking. Ok, the obsessed baker is actually Barbra. In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, finding unique and interesting products to cook and bake with is kind of a scavenger hunt. A couple of weeks ago, I checked the “specialty” food section at one of our stops on our regular shopping rounds. I noticed a bag of Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour. The packaging boasted that it is “America’s best baking flour.” The words “biscuits, muffins, pie crusts, and pancakes” were in large print to catch the’ attention of bakers. Nice job, marketing department. Hooked me!

I purchased a three-pound bag and began experimenting. Increasingly, I’ve been reading about replacing all-purpose flour with whole wheat – or at least replacing some of the white flour with whole wheat. What I’ve noticed with Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour is that it is very light – not even making a noticeable difference when I tried out recipes with half wheat and half white flour. I wanted the wheat benefits without the heavy “wheat” feeling in my baked goods. Today I tried substituting all the white flour called for in my muffin recipe with the whole wheat pastry flour. The results? Delicious! There was definitely a wheat flavor which was nicely balanced with the oat bran.

This recipe is a great base. The fruits and nuts could be substituted with any kind of fruits and nuts. If you don’t want the chocolate chips, simply omit them. These muffins are not overly sweet. In this case, I liked the little bits of chocolate which complemented the unsweetened frozen strawberries.

Chocolate Chip Strawberry Oat Bran Nutty Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups oat bran
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/4 cups applesauce
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1 1/2 cups chopped strawberries (fresh or frozen)

Directions

1. Grease 16 regular-sized muffin cups. I used a 12-muffin tin and a 6-muffin tin and only greased 4 of the 6 in the smaller tin.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
3. In a large bowl, whisk together oat bran, pastry flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
4. Stir chocolate chips into flour mixture. Set aside.
5. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar until well blended.
6. Mix applesauce and vanilla into egg mixture.
7. Mix egg mixture into flour mixture.
8. Fold pecans into dough.
9. Fold strawberries into dough.
10. Using an ice cream scoop, place scoopfuls of dough into each muffin section of the muffin tins.
11. Bake muffins for 15 minutes. An inserted toothpick should come out clean when muffins are done.
12. Let cool in tin on wire rack for about 5 minutes before removing from tin.