Easy Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins

Spring is whispering. The crocuses are up — Carol's yard, right on schedule, purple and yellow, the advance scouts of the season I've been waiting for. The light is changing. The mornings are warmer. The foothills have that in-between quality — brown from winter but thinking about green, the way a person about to smile looks like they're thinking about smiling before they actually do.

My annual screening is next month. The anxiety hum increases, as it always does in the weeks before a scan. From a two to a four. Manageable but audible. I manage it the way I manage everything: by cooking. There is no cancer-scan anxiety that cannot be temporarily reduced by standing at a stove and chopping vegetables. The chopping is meditative. The rhythm is calming. The knife is steady even when I am not.

Lily's riding continues. She's been at Sunshine Stables for almost a year now, and the transformation is remarkable. She sits tall, she commands with quiet legs and gentle hands, she communicates with the horse in a language that no one taught her. Janet said, "She's the most natural young rider I've had in fifteen years." I believe her. Lily was built for this. Some people find their thing at fifty. Lily found hers at four.

The garden is waking up. I can see the garlic I planted in October poking through the mulch, green shoots pushing through brown earth, and the strawberry plants are producing new leaves, and the garden is alive again after sleeping all winter, and it feels like a metaphor so obvious I don't need to name it. Everything I need to know about resilience, I learned from a garden: you go dormant, you rest, you come back. Every spring. Without fail.

I made Irish soda bread this week — a recipe from book club Pam, who is Irish-American and insists that soda bread should have no raisins ("raisins are a betrayal of the bread's integrity," she says, and she is the oldest so we don't argue). Flour, buttermilk, baking soda, salt. No raisins. Baked until the crust cracks and the interior is dense and slightly sweet. I ate it warm with butter and it tasted like March: plain, honest, the foundation of something richer that hasn't arrived yet but is coming.

The soda bread was gone by Tuesday — Lily had the last slice with jam before school — and I found myself wanting more of that same feeling: something plain and warm and made with buttermilk, something that asks almost nothing of you and gives back so much. These buttermilk oatmeal muffins live in that same honest territory. No raisins (Pam would approve), no fuss, just the kind of baking that steadies your hands when your head is elsewhere.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 18 minutes | Total Time: 28 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter

Instructions

Soak the oats. In a medium bowl, combine the rolled oats and buttermilk. Stir to combine and let stand for 10 minutes while you prepare the dry ingredients. The oats will soften and absorb the buttermilk.
Heat the oven. Preheat your oven to 400°F. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin or line with paper liners.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon until evenly combined.
Combine wet ingredients. Add the egg and oil (or melted butter) to the oat and buttermilk mixture, stirring until just combined.
Fold together. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined — a few lumps are fine. Do not overmix or the muffins will be tough.
Fill and bake. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool and serve. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Serve warm with butter.

Nutrition (per serving)

Easy Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins — Plain, Honest, and Exactly What March Called For