Cowboy Oatmeal Cranberry Muffins

Last night, I was trying to decide what to bake up for an easy Sunday morning breakfast to feed my country boys before church.

It wasn't hard to decide on making Cowboy Oatmeal Cranberry Muffins for my big and little cowboy.

My brother sent Ethan a kid's King Arthur Flour muffin mix for Christmas. Ethan loved the horse on the package and I appreciated that the mix was organic and full of whole grains to fuel my little cowboy.

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Ethan enjoys helping me cook and was really excited to bake up his very own mix. Ethan mixed the melted butter, milk and egg as instructed on the package.

We only used 2 of the 4 tablespoons of butter that the package called for. I substituted 2 tablespoons of applesauce for the reduced butter in the recipe. This helps to lower the fat in recipes but still provides lots of moisture so you don't realize the fat is missing.

I also jazzed up the boxed mix with the addition of dried cranberries. I added about 1/4 cup of dried cranberries. (A lot of the cranberries ended up being snatched by my little helper before they could get in the mix.)

Ethan finished mixing the batter and then scooped the batter into a lined muffin tin. Note: The package says it yields 6 muffins but we easily got 7 muffins and could have probably gotten 8 out of the batter.

We topped each muffin with a cranberry to provide a visual cue on what is hidden inside the muffins.

After baking for 16 minutes, the muffins came out nice and golden brown.

The Cowboy Oatmeal  Cranberry Muffins smelled of sweet cinnamon and filled the house with the savory aroma. It was very hard to resist the muffins last night and save them for breakfast.

First thing this morning, I poured myself and cup of coffee and picked out a muffin. The muffins were moist, dense and satisfying. Definitely a hit with my cowboys and gave them a great start to their day out here on the range.

Thank you Roger for the fabulous muffin mix!