Barneys (old recipe)
 

I was reading an old cookbook on kindle tonight and I saw a recipe for something called 'Barneys.' It looked like it would be a breakfast muffin but it had the simplest ingredients and instructions EVER!

I had to get into the kitchen and make them - modified for my tastes - but I thought it would be so quick and easy, even if it flopped, I would not have wasted much time and effort.

The recipe was 4 cups of whole wheat flour, 3 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt and enough water to make it have the texture of cake batter (that is exactly how it was described - make it 'like cake batter'). You heated up a muffin tin in a hot oven and buttered it so that the batter wouldn't stick when you dropped in big dollops of the batter. I just used a non-stick muffin tin.

Then you baked it in the hot oven (I set the oven to 450 F.) for 15 minutes.

I used 3 cups bread flour and 1 cup wheat bran flakes (whatever that bran is you get in the Whole Foods bins), 3 tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp salt. Dropped the batter in, put it in the hot oven, and 15 minutes later, I had a dozen hot muffins.

Inside, my muffins looked soft, somewhere between cooked oatmeal, a wheat muffin, and a popover. The bottoms are firm and a bit shiny. The tops were just a little light brown. I split one open and spread it with a little butter while it was hot, then put a little jam on a hot muffin half. It was really pretty good!

So: it was low-fat (nearly no-fat) and high-fiber (that's my own preference) and cheap. Not to mention fast.

I'll have to look up the publication date of that old kindle cookbook (it was one of those freebies that are out of copyright so volunteers transcribe it to kindle format).

Come to think of it, it's a little like Yorkshire puddings. Without the milk. Without the eggs. And I have made Yorkshire puddings - they kind of collapse, and these things are sturdy and hold their shapes.

The source of the recipe:


A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl

Benton, Caroline French

Published by Page Co, (1905), Boston, 1916